Cam Heyward Has Faith in Mitch Trubisky: ‘We’re Going to Support Him’

The Steelers have several question marks heading into the 2022 season, but the elephant in the room is whether they have a quarterback who can efficiently replace Ben Roethlisberger after an 18-year Hall of Fame career. The Steelers are hoping that first-round pick Kenny Pickett becomes QB1 sooner rather than later. However, the favorite to start in Week 1 is veteran Mitch Trubisky, considering that he got first-team reps in minicamp and OTAs over Pickett, who ran with the third-team. Mason Rudolph received second-team reps.

Cam Heyward discussed the Steelers’ quarterback competition on his new podcast Not Just Football recently and the five-time Pro Bowler believes Trubisky will get the nod first to command the starting quarterback job. Heyward also thinks Trubisky doesn’t get enough credit for what he accomplished in Chicago.

“I think it starts with Mitch,” Heyward said. “Mitch, we brought him in in free agency. And I think the thing that we have to remember about Mitch is he’s coming from a situation where in Chicago they didn’t really give him anything. And he still made it to the playoffs. I think he made it to the playoffs twice. Everyone likes to say, ‘Mitch did this wrong. Mitch did that wrong. Man, Mitch did a lot of things right.’ Hopefully, I think we have a better team around him. We’re going to support him.”

While Heyward said Trubisky is set up to be the Steelers’ No. 1 quarterback, he also mentioned that it’s still very early in the process.

“We don’t know what it’s going to be by the time the season kicks off,” Heyward said. “There’s a lot of football that’s gotta take place. All we’re doing in OTAs is running around in shorts. I’m ready to put on some pads and see how these guys deal with pressure in their face. The O-lineman is literally folded up in front of them, DBs are really able to press. These are all different things that have to come into play.”

As Heyward alluded to, Trubisky was dealt a bad hand in Chicago. According to The Athletic’s Adam Jahns and Kevin Fishbain, Matt Nagy berated Trubisky in front of the team and “no-showed” him for a meeting in 2019. It was just a toxic environment all around for Trubisky.

Despite not being in an ideal situation, Trubisky was still 29-21 as a starter and led the Bears to the playoffs twice. He also had a 64-37 touchdown-interception ratio and a passer rating of 87.2. So, he wasn’t terrible, but he certainly didn’t live up to being the second overall pick in 2017. Perhaps Trubisky’s experience backing up Josh Allen and learning from Brian Daboll could jumpstart his career in Pittsburgh.

Heyward also touched on Pickett’s much-discussed small hands during the podcast, which he believes was blown out of proportion during the pre-draft process. However, Heyward still jokes with the rookie by calling him “Burger King Hands,” a reference to BK’s tiny hands commercial.