PITTSBURGH — As Cameron Heyward crossed the gold end zone and headed for the home tunnel after warmups Sunday night in Week 18, a handful of former Pittsburgh Steelers waited for him.
One by one, they enveloped the 36-year-old defensive tackle in back-thumping hugs as he waded through the crowd of well-wishers.
Among the throng of Steelers alumni were former defensive end Brett Keisel and former running back Jerome Bettis, two of the franchise’s all-time greats with three Super Bowl trophies, four AFC championships, 19 playoff wins and numerous individual accolades between them.
With his lengthy list of individual accolades, including a second-team AP All-Pro nod for the 2025 season, Heyward is already a future franchise legend. But sitting at the dais after clinching the AFC North a week ago, Heyward admitted he was jealous of those former Steelers.
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It’s why he spurned the divisional championship garb, instead placing the hat on the table in front of him after helping the Steelers to their ninth playoff berth in his 15-year career.
“I wasn’t putting on the hat for a reason,” Heyward said. “I want a different hat.
“… I’ve been instilled by a lot of great players here. I learned from a lot of just special players, Troy [Polamalu], Brett [Keisel], Aaron Smith, Casey Hampton, shoot, guys I didn’t even play with like Joey Porter. They’ve all been in my ear. And even when I didn’t want to hear it, they were honest with me. … I’m just honestly jealous of them. They have something that I don’t have, and when they all come back for their reunions, I want to be able to have some hardware one day.”
With a 1-8 playoff record since being drafted No. 31 in 2011, Heyward understands the franchise’s playoff futility better than most of his teammates. It’s why, as happy as he was to punch a ticket to the postseason with the wild Week 18 win against the Baltimore Ravens, he is far from satisfied.
He didn’t come this far just to come this far. Neither did coach Mike Tomlin.
For the 53-year-old head coach and his longest-tenured player, beating the No. 5 seed Houston Texans on Monday night (8:15 ET, ABC/ESPN) to finally win a playoff game might not satisfy an increasingly restless fanbase with sky-high expectations, but it would stop a painful skid, solidify Tomlin’s future in Pittsburgh and be the first step in returning to a standard the franchise hasn’t upheld in nearly a decade.
“We’re AFC North champions,” Tomlin said after the Week 18 win. “And that sounds good, and it feels good. But we didn’t come here for that. We came here for what lies ahead.”
Nearly a decade has passed since a Tomlin-coached Steelers team advanced past the first weekend of the playoffs. The Steelers’ last postseason victory came in the divisional round against the Kansas City Chiefs in January 2017 after Pittsburgh beat the Miami Dolphins in the wild-card game. A week later, the Steelers were blown out against the New England Patriots in the AFC title game 36-17.
Tomlin’s teams haven’t won a playoff game in eight seasons. No coach in franchise history has gone nine seasons without a postseason victory. Ahead of Monday’s game, Tomlin acknowledged that the playoff-win drought wasn’t a burden this year’s team should carry.
“Quite frankly, most of these men don’t care about the last whatever years that you mentioned,” Tomlin said. “Most of them are new to us. And so that’s where my focus is. I’m certainly not going to unpack my bags on the collective’s bed, if you will. I’m excited about doing it, doing it this week with this collective.”
Heyward’s last playoff win is even more distant than the team’s last postseason victory. Injured before the 2016 postseason, Heyward was sidelined during the Steelers’ wins against the Chiefs and Dolphins. The last — and only — time he played in a postseason victory was an 18-16 win against the Cincinnati Bengals in the wild-card round Jan. 9, 2016. He recorded a sack and four quarterback hits in that win. The Steelers lost 23-16 a week later to the Denver Broncos in the divisional round.
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And though Heyward, Tomlin and the few others who’ve been around for the bulk of the Steelers’ postseason losing streak insist it doesn’t matter to the current locker room, younger players have been vocal that they want to win for guys like Heyward, one of Pittsburgh’s four captains this season. “It’s one thing to want to do it for yourself, but when you get that connection, that brotherhood that we’ve developed throughout the years, it’s way better when you fight for somebody else — and that guy deserves a lot,” third-year defensive lineman Keeanu Benton said of Heyward. “So, I’m going to give it all I got, and I feel like our defense and offense, and our team feels the same way.”
But if the 2025 Steelers feel the weight of their franchise’s near-decade stretch of playoff futility, they haven’t shown it in the week leading up to Monday night’s wild-card meeting with the Texans.
Instead, the locker room inside the Steelers’ practice facility has been loose and full of energy.
A miniature basketball hoop on the side of quarterback Will Howard’s locker has been a hot spot of increasingly boisterous activity. Since the hoop went up four weeks ago, singular shotmaking competitions have turned into rowdy games of knockout as the mini basketballs multiplied, and a yellow-taped free throw line appeared on the black carpet.
Other games have sprung up around the locker room this week, too, as some gathered to shoot dice before the team walk-through and others roughhoused after practice.
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At Aaron Rodgers’ direction during Friday’s practice, the quarterbacks and running backs hoisted assistant equipment manager Kyle Powers onto their shoulders and chanted, “Rudy! Rudy!” to celebrate Powers’ birthday.
But don’t mistake the looseness — at least by players’ perspectives — for being unfocused or unprepared.
“It’s important that when the game’s on the line, and there’s big-play opportunities, that you’re looking at the guy in the eyes who you’ve gone through a lot with, whether that’s just hanging out in the cafeteria for breakfast club or that’s shooting basketball hoops or whatever it is,” said T.J. Watt, who hasn’t won a playoff game since he was selected No. 30 in the 2017 NFL draft.
“We have guys that genuinely hang out inside and outside of the building. We work out together, we do everything together. It’s been a real treat to see us grow together. And when we’re in those tough situations, nobody’s blinking, nobody’s nervous or panicking. We just have confidence in each other.”
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The vibe shift of the locker room didn’t just happen in the week between the regular season and the playoffs. Instead, running back Kenneth Gainwell said he has noticed it building over the past six weeks as the team rebounded from a 6-6 record and rallied after fans called for Tomlin to be fired during the Week 13 loss to the Buffalo Bills.
“The offense started picking it up,” Gainwell said. “Defense started picking it up, so we knew we had to do it. Just getting into the playoffs made everybody smile.”
Perhaps, then, it’s not a coincidence that the Steelers finished the last stretch of the season 4-1.
“To me, I think if you’re uptight, your team can make mistakes,” said Gainwell, the team’s 2025 MVP who also won last year’s Super Bowl as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles. “You don’t want to make mistakes. You want to be free. You want to go out there and have fun. That would come with the game. I’m happy to see everybody around here with high energy. It just shows that we’re willing to go out there and get a win and do what we have to do, small things.”
Smiles are nice, but they’re not enough. Not for Tomlin, not for Heyward, not for a franchise with six Super Bowls — the last one in 2008.
As the organization nears 15 years since its last Super Bowl appearance — coincidentally a loss to a Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers team — and 17 years since the franchise won its sixth Lombardi Trophy, fan unrest has seemingly never been higher.
Prominent former players such as 2008 Defensive Player of the Year James Harrison have publicly speculated that it might be time for Tomlin to move on. And yet, with Tomlin still under contract through at least the 2026 season with a club option decision for 2027 due in March, there is nothing to suggest that the organization with just three head coaches since 1969 will break from precedent and move on from its head coach, no matter how loud the outside noise gets. If Tomlin isn’t on the sideline in Pittsburgh next season, it will seemingly be of his own volition.
Like his head coach, Rodgers also seemingly controls his destiny. Though he told “The Pat McAfee Show” in June that he was “pretty sure” the 2025 season would be his last after signing a one-year, $13.65 million contract with the Steelers, Rodgers recently didn’t rule out playing another season.
“I’m thinking about this week, but obviously, I’m 42 years old, and I’m on a one-year deal,” he said Dec. 31. “So, you know what the situation is. Whenever the season ends, I’ll be a free agent. So, that’ll give me a lot of options if I still want to play. I mean, not a lot of options, but there’ll be options, I would think, maybe one or two, if I decide I still want to play.”
Rodgers’ last playoff appearance was during his Packers days — a 13-10 wild-card loss to the San Francisco 49ers in January 2022 — and his overall playoff record (12-10) is better than that of his head coach (8-11). Rodgers’ last playoff win came in January 2021 with a 32-18 win against the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round.
But before the Steelers can dream of more or the franchise’s focal figures consider their futures, they have to survive Monday night and advance to a place few of them have been.
“The main focus is trying to win a game,” Heyward said. “Can’t control what’s happened in the past. My goal is to try to win the game now. And that’s all we can control. I think worrying about what’s happened in the past doesn’t do anybody any good. But we got to play our best ball now.”
