Steelers 4 Downs: Set to play in 200th game, Cameron Heyward off to dominant start to season

1. Say hey to Heyward

Cameron Heyward is appearing in his 200th career game Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders, and barring injury he will become the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise leader in games played by a defensive player by the end of the month. While it wasn’t unreasonable to suggest as recently as a few weeks ago Heyward was slowing down, during his age-35 season, Heyward seems to be in a career renaissance.

Coming off the heels of an injury-riddled 2023 that lacked his usual standard of production, Heyward through five weeks in 2024 has been one of the NFL’s best interior defensive linemen.

According to the subjective grading by Pro Football Focus, Heyward is the best defensive lineman in the league this season. It’s across the board, too — Heyward has the service’s best grade among all interior defensive linemen for run defense and tackling and is third-best for pass rushing.

Heyward has not been docked for a missed tackle — no player with as many PFF-credited tackles as him (16) can claim that. Only one D-linemen has a better PFF pass-run win percentage (18.8%), and only one has more credited “stops” in the run game (13). A “stop” is a tackle that constitutes a “failure” for the offense.

If PFF isn’t your thing, Sports Info Solutions rates Heyward as the third-best defensive tackle in the NFL by its all-encompassing metric. It joins PFF and pro-football-reference.com in not recognizing a missed tackle from Heyward all season. Additionally, the latter outlet has Heyward with eight QB hits — most among any interior defensive lineman.

2. Two-hundred and counting

Heyward trailed only a pair of Hall of Famers from the 1970s on the Steelers’ all-time games played list for defenders: safety Donnie Shell (201) and cornerback Mel Blount (200).

Assuming defensive lineman Brandon Graham suits up for the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, Heyward and Graham will become the 16th and 17th active players who reached 200 career games. That’s a list regardless of position and includes nine special teamers and two quarterbacks. Heyward is set to join Graham, Calais Campbell, Jerry Hughes and Cameron Jordan as the only active defensive players who have endured 200 NFL regular-season games.

In addition to Shell and Blount, only Ben Roethlisberger (249), Mike Webster (220) and Hines Ward (217) have appeared in as many games for the Steelers as Heyward. And even if the expanded season schedules are accounted for (in the 1970s, for example, NFL teams played 14 games per year as opposed to the 17 presently), Heyward’s 14 seasons of service for the Steelers rank behind just Roethlisberger’s 18 and Webster’s 15. Eight others played 14 seasons for the Steelers, including a pair of Heyward’s former teammates, James Harrison and Ward.

3. No chunks

The raw stats suggest the Steelers have one of the better run defenses in the NFL. They rank fifth in total yards allowed (91.2 per game) and third in yards allowed per carry (3.68).

A major means for achieving that end involves avoiding “chunk” plays, and the Steelers have done well in that area. According to Sharp Football Analysis, the Steelers have the second-lowest rate in the NFL of opponent rushes that gain 5 or more yards (30.8%).

The Steelers rank tied for eighth in fewest opponent rushes of 20-plus yards (two) and have yet to allow a run of more 21 yards this season.

PFF grades the Steelers as having the NFL’s fifth-best rushing defense.

4. Box-ed in

Part of what went into Najee Harris’ middling production (42 rushing yards) during last week’s loss to Dallas was that the Cowboys defense focused in on stopping him. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Harris faced a “stacked box” during 43% of his 14 carries — the second-highest rate of any NFL running back in Week 5.

What’s interesting is that different teams tend to deploy disparate strategies against Harris. During two of the five games so far this season, Harris has encountered “eight men in the box” at a rate among the top 10 of NFL running backs for that given week. But in two others, he was in the bottom 10 for running versus stacked boxes.

For the season on whole, Harris has run against an eight-man box on 20.8% of his carries, a rate that ranks 24th among 50 qualifying NFL rushers.