Cameron Heyward Speaks Out on Idea Steelers Quit vs. Ravens

The Pittsburgh Steelers had a very poor showing in the AFC Wild Card matchup against the Baltimore Ravens. But it wasn’t because the team quit.

That’s what Steelers captain and All-Pro defensive lineman Cameron Heyward said on the January 16 episode of his “Not Just Football” podcast.

“If they’re giving less than 100 percent, they’ve got to live with that,” Heyward told his co-host Hayden Walsh. “But from my perspective, there wasn’t anybody like that.”

Heyward added that players such as linebacker Patrick Queen played through an illness in the playoff game. Heyward has also been sick for the past two weeks.

Pittsburgh’s effort, though, was called into question after Amazon Prime analyst Kirk Herbstreit suggested one of the Steelers’ problems in the first half was the team’s “fight.” The Steelers fell behind 21-0 to the Ravens before halftime.

Steelers Couldn’t Stop Ravens Offense

Baltimore played so flawlessly on offense in the first half on January 11 that maybe to some, such as Herbstreit, it looked like the Steelers weren’t trying. But embarrassingly, they were.

The Steelers gave up 308 yards, including 164 rushing yards, in the first half. Baltimore posted a 95-yard touchdown drive to begin the game. Then in the second quarter, the Ravens had an 85-yard touchdown drive where they only called running plays.

In the first half, it looked like Pittsburgh’s defensive game plan was to crash down on the Ravens running backs on Baltimore’s option plays. But that opened up running lanes for quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Then when the Steelers switched a defender or two to Jackson, running back Derrick Henry got rolling too.

“You try to stop one and then the other goes off. Trying to stop all led to us not stopping anything,” Heyward said. “Throughout it all, we never really got a chance to take anything from the game, and then it kind of just opened up Pandora’s box for what could go wrong in that game.”

The Steelers allowed a franchise-high 298 rushing yards in the 28-14 loss.

Cameron Heyward Addresses Steelers’ Slow Starts

Because the Steelers defensive game plan didn’t work, Pittsburgh once again experienced a terrible first half in a playoff game. Opponents have outscored the Steelers 63-0 in the first quarter of their past five playoff games.

Pittsburgh’s offense also contributed very little early on versus the Ravens. The Steelers had 58 yards in the first half of the wild card game.

“I think it’s the whole team. Whether it’s the defense not getting off the field, not getting third-and-outs. The last couple weeks, it had been a multitude of that,” Heyward said. “The offense not scoring any points. Then didn’t really have any splash. There wasn’t a lot to really hang are hat on even if we surrendered points. We hadn’t been complimentary to each other.”

As has often been the case for the Steelers, things improved in the second half. But the deficit was too big to erase.

“I thought the offense came out and played a lot better. But it was a hole that was dug pretty deep to even try to fight out of that,” added Heyward.

Falling behind in the first half was a significant issue at the end of the 2024 regular season for the Steelers as well. Including the playoffs, Pittsburgh didn’t hold a lead in any of its final five games this season.