Although now a mere cliffnote in the story of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ blowout loss to the Cincinnati Bengals yesterday, the game did mark the first—and perhaps last—game of Cameron Heyward’s career in which he started at nose tackle.
That doesn’t mean a whole lot functionally in today’s NFL when you spend so much time in sub-packages, though the Bengals did run the ball a lot and held a lead from their opening drive on. The more significant component is why he was starting there.
“You know, we decided to go with Cam Heyward at nose to solidify us a little bit more on the interior portions of our defense”, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said after the game, with Henry Mondeaux also seeing some time there.