**Player: TE Connor Heyward**
**Stock Value: Up**
**Reasoning:** _Donald Parham Jr.’s injury helps Connor Heyward keep his job this season, as grim as that might sound. While special teams continues to be his focus, they also need three tight-end-like bodies. Even if they do call him Meatball, his body somewhat resembles a tight end. With the unlikelihood of the Steelers trading for Jonnu Smith, this seems like a net advantage for Heyward._
You might have opened this thinking the reignition of trade speculation about Jonnu Smith would be detrimental to Connor Heyward’s stock right now. I don’t see it that way simply because I don’t really buy the talk or see it amounting to anything.
Rather, I see the Steelers with one fewer tight end than they had the day before, which helps Heyward. That’s a callous and cold way of framing it, but the numbers are the numbers. With Donald Parham Jr. no longer a factor, Heyward is that much more stable in his positioning.
Parham was, arguably, already a roster bubble guy, but then again, so is Connor Heyward. Arthur Smith didn’t use him as much as Matt Canada did previously. I mean, just look at how many snaps MyCole Pruitt played, and that was amid injuries.
Heyward is going into the final year of his contract and he arguably took a step back in usefulness last year. While he remains a strong special teams player, even the Steelers are willing to turn over the roster there.
One thing I will say is that, if Parham’s injury could spark the Jonnu Smith talk again, that does say _something_. What that says to me is that they still believe they need another tight end of note. So even if you don’t buy the Smith talk, perhaps this signals that the Steelers will bring in another tight end to challenge Connor Heyward. Until that happens, though, I’m bumping up his stock ever so slightly.
_With the new league year underway and the Steelers turning their roster over, it’s once again time to “take stock”. It took a while, but we finally saw some of that_ [_change the team talked about_](https://steelersdepot.com/2025/02/steelers-make-their-coaching-changes-they-still-manage-to-disappoint/) _after the season ended. Certainly, the move to trade for WR DK Metcalf qualifies as a change, not to mention the accompanying contract._
_There is still a long way to go before we know what this Steelers team is going to look like. The dust is settled on both free agency and_ [_the 2025 NFL Draft_](https://www.nfl.com/draft/)_. What other moves might the team make, perhaps unexpected acquisitions or departures? If they traded for one player, they could certainly trade for another, or trade one away. This is a Steelers team starving for postseason success, but how desperate are they for a playoff win in 2025?_