Steelers DT Cam Heyward Talks Aaron Rodgers, Tomlin, NFL Draft & More w/ Rich

Cam Heyward returned to The Rich Eisen Show in Pittsburgh on the morning of the NFL Draft, slipping into a weekly cadence with Rich and using the occasion to pull back the curtain on Mike Tomlin's broadcast pivot, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback room and his expectations for Aaron Rodgers.

The Steelers defensive tackle had spent two days earlier with Tomlin, who is preparing for his television role with the same detail he brought to the sideline. "He was studying John Madden just for purposes," Heyward said. "He wants to do things the right way and he's always had a lot of respect." Heyward offered to translate Tomlin's tendencies for the audience, predicting recurring lines like "the standard is the standard," "two dogs, one bone" and "this is popcorn," then framed Tomlin's transition the same way Hard Knocks viewers already understood it. "He just makes the room feel engaged in the viewer," Heyward said. Asked whether Tomlin would eventually return to the sideline, Heyward landed on media, pointing to a possible father-daughter Olympic moment with his daughter Harley as a gymnast trialing for Team USA.

The Aaron Rodgers question hung over the rest of the room. Heyward said he had not spoken to Rodgers and did not know whether the quarterback would join the Steelers, but he leaned on instinct shaped by walking off the field in the playoffs alongside Rodgers and Tomlin. "I thought this could be it for me personally," Heyward said of his own walk-off mindset, before turning to Rodgers and drawing a Peyton Manning parallel of a quarterback wanting one more chapter on a different team than the one that just closed. With twelve picks in this draft and acquisitions on both sides of the ball, Heyward sounded confident the roster around any veteran arrival would be stout.

The quarterback conversation pulled in Will Howard, the rookie Heyward had championed earlier in the show. "You got me in trouble," Heyward said, recounting a text from Mason Rudolph after Heyward's Ohio State appreciation went public. "Mason Rudolph was texting me. He was like, 'Dang, I've never heard you give that much credit to our other quarterback.'" Rich pressed Heyward on the wide receiver debate at the top of the draft, where industry chatter had Arizona State's Jordan Tyson going ahead of Carnell Tate. Heyward defended Tate with his Ohio State pedigree intact and a four-pack of gold pants to back it up.

Heyward closed on his Salute to Service event with USAA and Mina Kimes, gathering one hundred military service members in greater Pittsburgh, an event he tied to his grandfather's Coast Guard service. Asked which team would draw the loudest boos in Pittsburgh, Heyward did not flinch. "Cleveland," he said.