Pro Bowl DT Cam Heyward wasn't very happy with Ben Roethlisberger calling current NFL players "me-first."
In an interview the retired quarterback had with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Friday, Roethlisberger talked about the changes he's seeing in the NFL, noting how the Steelers used to be a team-first group at the beginning of his career but slowly turned into players caring only for themselves.
"The team was so important," Roethlisberger said, referring to his first few seasons with Pittsburgh. "It was all about the team. Now, it's about me and this, that and the other.
"I might be standing on a soapbox a little bit, but that's my biggest takeaway from when I started to the end. It turned from a team-first to a me-type attitude. It was hard. It's hard for these young guys, too. Social media. They're treated so well in college. Now, this new NIL stuff, which is unbelievable. They're treated so special. They're coddled at a young age because college coaches need them to win, too. I know coach [Terry] Hoeppner never coddled me. Neither did [Bill] Cowher."
After hearing these comments, Heyward took to his podcast to discuss his former teammates' comments, saying his remarks definitely upset him and were out of line.
"It looks as though we are looked at as selfish players, and I don't think that's the point," the veteran defensive lineman said on the "Not Just Football with Cam Heyward" podcast. "We have a lot of young players that come from different backgrounds, have experienced different things from what others or I may have experienced. That doesn't make them selfish or more of a me-type attitude. ... There are a lot more team-first guys than me-type attitude. I took offense to that."
Heyward, who has been a team captain since 2015, says guys like JuJu Smith-Schuster, Brett Kissel and even Antonio Brown were team first guys despite what their quirky personalities may portray.
Roethlisberger's entire 18-year career saw him lead the Steelers to two Super Bowls and finished his career with the fifth-most passing yards (64,088) in NFL history. He retired in 2021 after it was clear as day that he was holding the team back.
Although critical of Roethlisberger, Heyward emphasized that he isn't trying to throw shade at Roethlisberger but simply just trying to explain his side.
"Don't say Cam is calling out Ben -- it's not like that," Heyward said. "But I will say, I'll protect my team. I will make sure that everybody knows that we care only about football on the field and less about off the field. We can all understand Ben has been a heck of a QB. You don't do this game and become a Hall of Fame quarterback and do it at a low level.
"Ben has taken some hits not a lot of other teams could do. He saved us, he won games we weren't supposed to win, and he's always stepped up. But it was the team around him that helped him do it, and I don't want anyone to ever forget that the whole team won -- not just Ben."
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