The Pittsburgh Steelers knew they were taking a risk with their hard-line stance in contract negotiations with cornerback Joey Porter Jr. Yes, Porter Jr. was asking for a top-of-the-market deal that would almost certainly pay him more than he’s technically worth. And yes, handing him that deal could well hamper the team’s future financial flexibility.
Then again … well, you generally need good players at premium positions to contend for a Super Bowl, and while Porter Jr. might not be quite as good as he (or his agent) thinks, he was still far and away the best cover man on Pittsburgh’s roster. Moving on from him for future draft capital left the Steelers perilously thin in the secondary during a win-now season — and if Thursday’s first half against the Cleveland Browns is any indication, that weakness might be more glaring than anybody thought.
Perilously thin Steelers secondary getting exposed without Joey Porter Jr.
Deshaun Watson and the Browns passing game has been better than expected so far this season, sure. But “better than expected” isn’t saying much when the expectations were somewhere near the Earth’s core. This is still a very young set of skill-position players, and Watson is still one of the worst starting quarterbacks in football.
Not that you’d know it from their performance in the first half against Pittsburgh on Thursday night, in which Watson went a cool 14-of-17 for 181 yards and a score. Five different Browns caught passes, including a 60-yard bomb over the top to Denzel Boston — who probably would have been Porter Jr.’s matchup had he still been in a Steelers uniform.
It’s an alarming indicator of what this new-look Steelers defense might look like, to say the least. Things were already sketchy entering Thursday night, and they look even more so now that CB1 Jamel Dean has been ruled out with an ankle injury. At this point, Pittsburgh is down to Asante Samuel Jr., Daylen Everette and Doneiko Slaughter, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Dean will hopefully be back soon, and there’s still time for the Steelers to improve as they adjust to new personnel. Right now, though, this sure seems like a potentially fatal flaw, raising questions about whether the Steelers were right not to give in to Porter Jr.’s demands after all.
Should Pittsburgh have just paid Joey Porter Jr. after all?
In a vacuum, the answer is pretty clearly no. If recent reports are any indication, Porter Jr. was seeking a contract that would have made him among the very richest corners in football — and he’ll almost certainly get something along those lines now that Dallas has ceded all their leverage in negotiations. He’s a good young player, but he’s not that good, and there’s a pretty good chance that the Steelers look back in a couple of years and feel thankful that they drew a line in the sand.
The NFL doesn’t take place in a vacuum, though, and Pittsburgh still needs to, you know, field a functional defense in the near term. That becomes much harder without Porter Jr., who may have been load-bearing in a way that fans didn’t quite appreciate at the time. Of course, this Steelers team probably wasn’t Super Bowl-worthy to begin with, so retooling for the future was probably the best course of action. Given the expectations that always swirl around this team, though, that’s a hard pill to swallow.
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