Steelers DE Cam Heyward appeared on Mark Ingram II and Cam Jordan’s podcast, Truss Levelz to talk about a variety of topics including the weird 2011 NFL Draft that took place during the NFL lockout, playing for Ohio State and his NFL dad, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward.
Heyward, who was born in Pittsburgh, was asked what it meant to him to be drafted by his hometown team out of Ohio State even though he didn’t think he would fall that far to be drafted by them.
“That night was crazy. I couldn’t even had planned it that way," said Heyward. “Shoot, I had gotten an email the night before from San Francisco before they made the trade to go back in the draft so Atlanta can draft Julio (Jones) so they were talking there’s an opportunity we might select you so I’m like ok we’ll see. They didn’t pick me they picked Aldon (Smith) and then I started to go down the list and I was like I might go to the jets and Muhammad and then I saw that 412 number from Pittsburgh and I was like, oh this is a match made in heaven."
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Like the host of the podcast, Heyward’s late father, Craig ‘Ironhead’ Heyward, was a former NFL player who played his college ball for the Pitt Panthers and had an 11-year NFL career with one Pro Bowl appearance to his name. Heyward was asked by Ingram how a son of a running back can produce a 6-foot-5 defensive end.
“Well, my dad was not a normal running back. On a good day, he was probably about 290 playing running back. You see the fullback Baltimore got, imagine him but just bigger and faster, that was my dad.”
After he and his family moved to Georgia, Heyward at one point had serious hoop dreams. Heyward mentioned playing basketball on the same high school team as Dwight Howard his freshman year of high school and once he transferred schools, he played against Dwight a number of times and lost to the future NBA star in the state championship game his senior year.
“Man, Dwight was dribbling up the floor. Imagine like a 6’11 dude just going the full length of the court and trying to dunk on you?" Heyward said.
Heyward is having a good start to the season already recording six tackles, two for a loss, a sack and a forced fumble heading into Week 3 against their division rivals, the Cincinnati Bengals. Pittsburgh are looking to bounce back after Week 2’s loss to the Raiders.
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