Pittsburgh Steelers interior defensive lineman Cam Heyward has made it clear that he is looking for a contract extension. I usually refrain from these types of articles, considering our cap guru Dave Bryan covers the topic extremely well, including his thoughts on a possible Heyward contract extension that you should definitely check out.
My goal is to use a statistical approach to see how Heyward has performed the last three seasons compared to the top-paid players at the position via Over The Cap.
First, I wanted to see where Heyward stacked up among interior defensive linemen (IDL) at an average yearly value of $12 million or more in grades from Pro Football Focus, viewing their average pass-rush and run-defense grades the last three years along with total snaps over that span as their dot sizes:
Several familiar names land on the top right of the visual, with the best-balanced grades as pass rushers and run defenders, only seven out of the 25 qualifying IDL doing so.