Joey Porter Jr pulled into Latrobe on Tuesday, the same day Denzel Ward became the highest paid defensive back in the history of the sport, and by the end of the day Joey was on the PUP list with a bad back. Everybody wants to argue about the money. The thing that actually decides this one is the Joey Porter Jr fifth year option question, and the answer is that there isn’t one.
But start with Tuesday, because Tuesday was something.
Omar Khan told reporters on Monday that nothing was imminent with Porter. Tuesday morning the Steelers ran their conditioning test at the indoor facility and per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor, Porter aggravated his back in it. Khan and Mike McCarthy then stood up in front of everybody and walked through Jalen Ramsey’s knee. Walked through Donte Kent’s. Answered the questions, gave the details, did the whole thing, and never mentioned Joey Porter Jr once.
Porter got added to that same list a few hours later, after the media session was over, with nothing attached to it.
And his back is probably actually messed up, I’ll say that plainly. Pryor also reported Porter’s been on and off an exercise bike since OTAs and the team never disclosed an injury the whole time. So this isn’t some scheme he cooked up in the parking lot. It’s that the Steelers took a real injury and put it out there in the most suspicious way they possibly could have, on the exact day their cornerback got more expensive.
The price went up twice while he was driving to camp
Ward got 2 years and $62.2 million out of Cleveland with $52.3 million guaranteed, which is $31.1 million a year and makes him the highest paid DB in NFL history for the second separate time in his career.
That’s not even the part that should scare you. Robert Kraft stood at a podium on Saturday and told reporters, out loud, on purpose, that New England has offered Christian Gonzalez a deal that would make him the highest paid corner alive and the biggest contract the Patriots have ever given anybody. Devon Witherspoon’s sitting in Seattle with an offer around $30 million a year. Gonzalez and Witherspoon share an agent, so they’re moving together, and every guy in that line is waiting on the guy in front of him to name a number.
And Ray Fittipaldo wrote in the Post-Gazette that the spike in corner prices is the exact reason general managers around the league are hitting pause, which might be the funniest sentence in this whole thing. The price went up, so now they want to buy less. That’s not how any of this works.
There is no Joey Porter Jr fifth year option, so Pittsburgh can’t wait him out
Christian Gonzalez went 17th overall in 2023, so New England got a fifth-year option on him and picked it up back in April. He’s locked in through 2027 at $18.1 million whether he signs an extension or not. Devon Witherspoon went 5th. Same option, same safety net.
Joey Porter Jr went 32nd, which was the first pick of the second round, because Miami had their first-rounder taken away that year for tampering with Tom Brady. Second round picks don’t get the option. There’s no damn button for Pittsburgh to push.
So Joey Porter Jr is the first player taken in the entire 2023 draft without a fifth-year option, and his deal is up after this season. New England can sit on their hands until Christmas. Seattle can sit on their hands until Christmas. Pittsburgh’s got until Week 1, because this team famously doesn’t negotiate once the games start, and after that it’s the franchise tag or it’s…
We’ve all watched this exact movie before
Le’Veon Bell. Two-time All-Pro, best offensive player on the roster, sat out an entire season over guaranteed money and then walked out the door for nothing. Steelers fans didn’t need the reminder and they’re getting one anyway.
And the counterargument’s fair, so I’ll say it before you do. Porter’s got three career interceptions and there are people around the league who look at that and see a second-tier corner who doesn’t take the ball away. Fine. He also allowed a 54.3 passer rating in coverage across his first three seasons, third-best catch rate allowed among the 21 highest paid corners in football, and the only guy with better numbers in both is Derek Stingley Jr. He’s been erasing the other team’s number one receiver since the day he got here.
Fittipaldo says get it done around $25 million a year and that 27 or 28 is a little rich. Mark Kaboly thinks it’s done before they break camp, he’s going under August 12th.
