FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith contends that the Pittsburgh Steelers owe Cam Heyward a new deal
#espn #nfl #football #nflnews
It’s hard for me to, you know, have after the year I’ve had to really justify playing at the number I’m playing at. Um, you know, I understand I signed a contract last year. Um, to be but to be completely honest with you, um, when I signed that, I told him, you know, when I have a allp pro year expecting me to come back. Um, and you can look at the contract and see what it was. But, um, you know, I think everybody kind of giggled a little bit, but in my heads, uh, I used it as motivation to go out there and prove it. All right, Lewis, he certainly delivered. Is Hayward justified for the Holden? Look, you know me, I’m I’m always going to be someone who believes that players should fight for what they feel their fair value is. Okay? And I know Doggy and I have gone back and forth about this about honoring a contract, not honoring contract. you know, this is a contract that was just signed a year ago. So, people are probably by and large going to say, “Well, look, Cam, you maybe you shouldn’t have signed the deal that you signed last year if you really thought that you were going to outperform it and you’re going to have to come back to the table again because you know what? This is what is working against him. He’s 36 years old.” And, you know, I talk about all the time about contracts supposed to supposed to are supposed to really represent uh projected future performance. If you’re the front office right now in Pittsburgh, you right now are really out there in rare error as far as trying to project future performance for Cam Hayward. As great as he has been and as disruptive as he was last year, you’re sitting there going, “Well, how do we value this now going forward? What how do we mitigate the risk to us as far as maybe his performance dropping off and have that reflected or rather trying to be fair with him as as far as how he played last year and what does that fair value ultimately come out to be in terms of dollar and cents? It’s going to be hard to get over that 14.5 $15 million per year range in my mind. And I’m sure he’s thinking, look, I deserve somewhere in 181 19 million per year. That’s what I deserve to be being paid right now. I think this one right here, this is a tough one for me. As much as I love this guy and I played with his father, Iron Head Haber at Pit, so he knows I love this young man. I knew him when he was a kid. This is going to be a tough one. And I I think Pittsburgh’s going to struggle with this one. I’m interested to see how this one plays out. Now, I’m with you. You know me. You sign a contract last year. I mean, come on. Don’t sign a contract then. Sign a one-year contract and then play. And if you play great, you can sign another one. You can’t you Stephen, you can’t be changing these contracts every 5 seconds because you think you outperformed your contract. There is a salary cap. They gave Wad all that money. I mean, they got to they gave Rogers plenty of money. You got to you got to figure it out some way. And this is a good organization, Pittsburgh. They’ve won championships. It’s good for an office. You know that better than anybody. This is a class. This is not the Bengals. This is not Jerry Jones. This is a team and organization that’s won a million Super Bowls, that’s had dozen fire coaches. They do the right thing. He signed a contract, Steve, last year 10 months ago. I mean, come on. He had a great year. Now we’re going to rip him up, give him another one. That doesn’t work that way in the real world. No way. So, I’m I’m with Lewis. No. Deal with it. The NFL The NFL is not the real world. Contrary to what doggy would have America and the world believe, the NFL is not the real world. The NFL could come to you to restructure your deal, to take a pay cut. They could flat out cut you after signing you. This is what they do in the National Football League. If this were baseball or basketball, it would be different. It is not. Now, let’s get to the facts here in terms of Haywood. All right. One year with one year left on his contract, right? If you remember the time when the Steelers typically like to negotiate extensions because if you got just one year, that’s when they typically like to come to you to renegotiate the deal. You know this, Lewis. You know this very, very well, doggy. Yet in 2023, Cam Haywood made 15.85 million in cash, but he counted 22.3 million against the cap according to my notes for over from over the cap. Right. The team approached him and asked him to take a pay cut. That’s what they did, doggy. The same thing that you just said he can’t do, they did. Okay. So now we fast forward and what does he do? He had limited leverage because he had an injury Mar 2023 season. So what does he do? Okay, he said, “All right, I’ll do this. But understand that if I perform to the level that I know I’m capable of performing, I’m going to come back.” That’s the understanding that they had. The brother has been a pro bowler seven of the last eight years. He’s been a fourtime allp pro NFL defensive lineman and interior lineman. He had eight sacks last year. Okay, the brother performs. And so he’s saying to you, I deserve this paper because guess what? I didn’t deserve to take the pay cut, but y’all came to me for that. And I told y’all that once I go out there and show you I’ve overcome my injury. While by the way, playing with injuries, the brothers still go out there and be and and and is and is an old pro. Come on now. If you perform particular particularly under duress, they shouldn’t be looking. I understand Lewis. You’re gonna look at him and you’re gonna say he’s 36 years old. Blah blah blah. Okay. You know what the NFL has done? Lewis Riddick, you know this better than me. You can restructure his deal. And you know what you can do? You can frontload it and you can make sure you pay him a lot in year one. So, in other words, you take He’s talking about this season. He’s talking about going into this season. what you said. He’s at 15 and a half. He probably thinks he deserves 18, 19, 20. Okay, give it to them for this one upcoming season. You can’t do that. Yes, they can. They can figure out a way to do that if he’s worth it. And I got news for you, doggy. He’s worth it. What’s he going to do, Steve, if they don’t do it to him? You know, he’s going to be there in week one. He’s not giving up that paycheck. He’s going to take he’s going to sign. So, from a standpoint of leverage, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. What I’m saying to you is I understand in most instances the team has the leverage. We get that part. But for the purposes of this show and shows who aspire to be like us, let’s be very very clear. We’re talking about the right and wrong of it. We’re not talking about the you we can mention the leverage because it’s a point of fact that can’t be ignored. But in the end, we have an obligation to point out whether this man has a point and he has a point. Absolutely. Let’s not act like he does not. That that that is key right there. Look, like I said in the very beginning of my comments, I have no issue with him wanting to go go back to the bargaining table and saying, “Hey, look, I outperformed projecting forward. I believe that I will be worth an elevated average per year over what I’m being paid right now. I believe I’m in that 17, 18, 19 range.” I’m just saying from a front office perspective, like you’re out there in rare air right now. I mean, it it’ll be hard for them right now to kind of wrap their mind around, okay, well, what do we think his projected performance looks like at age 37? At age 36 this year, age 37, I believe 37 during the season. It’s going to be hard for them. I’m just saying that that’s going to be the sticking point. How do they arrive at fair value? How do they and how comfortable are they extending themselves? Well, when doggy sitting right next to you, since doggy cares about stats, right? Let me ask you this question. for an interior lineman. What does this mean to you, Lewis Riddick? Eight sacks, fourth in pressures last year with 56, fourth in tackles for a loss with 12. He also batted down more passes than any other defensive lineman in the National Football League with 11. Yep. Just last year, what does that mean to you, Lewis? Talk to Doggy. Talk to him. Look, see, the interesting thing is, you know, he’s good, Steve. No, look, Pittsburgh has more information than anybody on the outside. They They do. They know exactly how Cam works, how he meets, how he produces in practice, how he plays during games, how he influences the rest of the football team. So, it’ll look again, they have all that information. They are more equipped to make this kind of judgment as far as his projected future performance than any of us. That’s why I’m saying I’m interested to see how this one plays out. I think that obviously the age factor is going to be the thing that they are going to have a sticking point with. It just is regardless of what he just did a couple of months ago. That’s I I don’t know if I would have that that Lewis, you know, that kind of reservation, but I’m telling you, it’s coming. It’s coming. Let me say this to you. I have a I respectfully I have a genuine problem with something that you do all the time. And I want to put a stop to it right here on national television. Lewis Riddick, Mr. Chippy Deals. I want to put a stop to it right now. I am sick and tired of hearing you say teams know more than we do. They all do. We get that. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Awesome. You got one. I need more. little man. One night. I try. I know that you might Sabat.
