With Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon and Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez getting their new contracts, another 2023 draft pick at the same position is still waiting for his reward.
Per a source with knowledge of the negotiations, nothing is imminent. However, the two sides have been talking.
Porter, the first pick in round two (and the 32nd overall that year because the Dolphins had been stripped of their first-round pick), is due to make $3.924 million in 2026, the final year of his deal. If he doesn’t get a new contract by Sunday, it’s “up in the air,” we’re told, as to whether he’ll play.
Complicating matters is the Steelers’ policy against negotiating once the regular season begins. So if a contract isn’t done by Sunday, ii won’t be this year — unless the Steelers deviate from their outdated policy.
The two sides obviously disagree on the amount to be paid for a cornerback who has yet to make it to a Pro Bowl. And it’s unclear whether the gap can be bridged.
Absent a deal, will Porter play? It will be hard for the team to question the legitimacy of a back problem (he was limited in practice on Wednesday), and he could sit indefinitely in protest of the prospect of playing for less than $4 million.
Another issue is the fact that Porter’s father, Joey Porter Sr., who played in the NFL for 13 seasons and who is definitely involved in the situation. Joey Sr.'s knowledge of how the sausage gets made becomes a factor in whether a deal gets done, and whether Joey Jr. will take the best offer on the table before the season starts.
However it goes, it needs to go somewhere — or nowhere — quickly. And if they don’t finalize a contract, it could get awkward and potentially ugly.
The Falcons have already ruled quarterback Michael Penix out for this week’s game against the Steelers, but he is taking part in practice with the team.
Penix was listed as a full participant on the team’s first practice report of the 2026 season. Penix returned to full team work in late August and called himself “really close” to being 100 percent recovered from last year’s torn ACL earlier this week, but doesn’t want to play until “there’s no doubt in my mind that I trust my knee.”
Tua Tagovailoa will start against Pittsburgh with Cooper Rush serving as the backup quarterback.
Wide receiver Zachariah Branch (hamstring), offensive lineman Kyle Hinton (knee), cornerback Billy Bowman (Achilles), defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus (groin), and defensive end Za’Darius Smith (shoulder) were listed as limited participants for Atlanta.
The Steelers’ first injury report of the season has been released. Only one name appears on it.
Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. was listed as limited in practice, due to a back injury.
It doesn’t take much to be listed as “limited” in practice; without more specifics, there’s no way of knowing how much he did, or didn’t, do.
The listing of Porter as having a back injury in advance of the Week 1 game against the Falcons is the next tangible move in the back-and-forth business wrangling between Porter and the Steelers over his second contract. He missed all of training camp on the physically unable to perform list, before passing a physical and being added to the roster when the limit moved from 90 to 53.
There are likely more moves to come. Obviously, a deal could be done at any time. If it isn’t by Sunday, the Steelers plan to revert to their in-house policy of not negotiating contracts once the regular season begins.
The Steelers do not negotiate contract extensions once the season starts. Thus, time is running out for the team to complete a long-term deal with cornerback Joey Porter.
“It’s a business, and there’s definitely business conversations going on,” head coach McCarthy said Monday, via Jack Markowski of SI.com.
McCarthy insinuated that he expects Porter to play regardless how talks turn out before Sunday’s season opener against the Falcons.
“Yeah, I hope so,” McCarthy said. “You know, just keep working him. He’s still, I’d put him in a ramp-up mode.”
When asked what happens if Porter doesn’t play, McCarthy said, “We’ll see what happens.”
Porter practiced for the first time last Tuesday after spending all of training camp on the active/physically unable to perform list. But last week he was noncommittal about playing Week 1 absent a contract extension.
Porter, a second-round pick in 2023, is entering the final year of his rookie contract scheduled to make $3.924 million this year.
He is coming off a career year, totaling a career-high 14 passes defensed to go along with 52 tackles, one sack and one interception.
The last time quarterback Tua Tagovailoa started a game in Pittsburgh, it became his last start with the Miami Dolphins. He was benched after the 28-15 loss on a Monday night in December — and he was cut in March.
Fast forward to September, and Tua will be returning to Pittsburgh as the Week 1 starter for the Falcons.
If it goes poorly, Tua may not be starting for very long. If it goes well, and if the Falcons upset the Steelers (Pittsburgh is currently favored by 3.5 points), there will be a very strong reaction in Western Pennsylvania.
Losing to Tua after drubbing him less than nine months earlier will provide the first clear apples-to-apples comparison between new coach Mike McCarthy and his predecessor, Mike Tomlin. Nuances will easily be lost on Steelers Nation. Yes, the Falcons are an overall better team than the 2025 Dolphins. The common denominator is the quarterback; if he plays dramatically better than he did the last time he played in Pittsburgh, Steelers fans will interpret that as an indication that the new boss won’t have the same kind of success as the old boss.
It would be dubbed an overreaction. But that’s what football fans do. With only seventeen games in a season, they all count. They all spark a reaction. And, at some point, the trend of overreacting shows that, actually, it’s the normal and usual reaction to a team losing a game it should have won.
The Steelers have more than a few winnable games in the eight weeks before the bye, including two against the Browns. Anything less than 5-3 will spark high anxiety on and after Week 10, where the Eagles, Broncos, Texans, Jaguars, a road game at the Bengals, and two games against the Ravens are lurking.
The fans who show up in six days will be expecting a 1-0 start. If the end result is 0-1, sphincters will be tightening quickly in the Steel City.
