Joey Porter Jr contract negotiations

I get it.

I would prefer that he was something like the 3-5th highest paid CB when he signs (especially if Gonzales signed first).

But it's also important to remember that structure matters more than AAV. If he had the highest AAV, but the deal was a year longer and it was structured like the Herbig or Benton deals (it won't be that team friendly), that would be very good for the team.

I agree with all of your complaints about the league.

I do think they'll hit a wall re: revenue. But not for a generation or two when people in the 40-50ish age group start dying out. Because I don't think younger generations care about sports as much as we do. Hopefully this is a long way off.

 

If he can hold in long enough for Gonzales to sign, he'll definitely make more money.

He's already made a lot of money by waiting this long. He would have been probably $28mm - $30mm if he signed early in the offseason based on old contracts. That would have been the equivalent of the sweet deal we got Minkah on. By waiting this long, I bet his market value has gone up by at least $2mm. Probably more than that after the Witherspoon deal.

Sounds like the Gonzales deal is going to be very big. The Pats already announced they want to give him a huge deal. But he still hasn't signed. Because it's going to be even bigger than they want. Will the AAV be $35mm-$36mm? If it is, it's a lot easier for Porter's team to argue for > $33MM after that signing than it is for them to make that argument today.

Makes sense for Porter to try to let the tide rise before he signs. I agree it's bad for the team. And I would have preferred for him to be playing this whole time. But I get why guys don't want to get hurt right before signing monster deals. TJ didn't play until his deal was signed either. And IIRC, the data tells us that CBs get hurt more frequently than edge rushers. Gonzalez was also "hurt" for all their preseason games. We'll see what he does now.

 

I am not sure if he is at 3-5th yet. He has the potential to be and he is still young but to say he is over - González, Witherspoon, Curtain, McDuffie, Guardner, Ward, Mitchell and Stingley is a stretch at the moment. The rest of the league doesn’t view him like that. He didn’t even make nfl top 100 this year. I can appreciate his confidence but he is either getting bad advice from his agent or he is delusional.

 

This guy says it better than I could. https://steelersdepot.com/2026/08/m...nts-to-reset-the-cornerback-market-trade-him/

 

So you chastise the team over a couple million dollars but not Porter. He is a great cb but again he has his flaws such as run defense, lack of turnovers, penalities and not great on zone coverage. Here is another argument: https://steelersdepot.com/2026/08/m...nts-to-reset-the-cornerback-market-trade-him/

 

To me the ultimate com-Rosie’s for both the team and Porter is to agree on a heavily sentivized deal. If he wants paid like the best then he has to perform like the best year in and year out. I wouldn’t be crazy on the gauruntee money either if I’m the team since cb’s get injured more than other players as you say.

 

Yeah, Porter wants to make what he is worth... the team makes over $600 million in total revenue on a yearly basis. They have a $301 million dollar cap every year. Porter squabbling over $5 million a year is like the team squabbling over $100 million. A couple million for the team is a lot less than it is for Porter. Also, a couple million bucks on arguably the best player on our team is worth it IMO.

No player is without flaws... but, again... he's a lot better than you're giving him credit for. His tackling has improved (he's hardly a liability, though I barely care about a corner's run defense ability when he's one of the league's top coverage players), he's improved his penalties (his 2025 campaign saw a big reduction in penalties, having less than Surtain, Mitchell, McDuffie, and other top corners), and you're just wrong about his zone coverage. He was rated 2nd in the NFL in zone coverage, allowing a 48.7 QB rating when targeted in zone in 2025. He's a really good all around player. You can argue that there is a small handful of guys better (I can get behind that), but you simply cannot tell me he isn't worth $30+ million a year. He is. If we made him the top paid corner in the league, he'd be the 10th highest corner paid in 2 years. Once Porter signs, then Gonzalez would sign for more, then Mitchell, then Surtain is due one (he's playing on a pretty big discount rn because he signed so long ago). He'd be the top paid CB for all of five mins.

 

He's made himself some money, I just hope it is with us. Gonzalez is a good measuring stick, because I can live with the idea that CG is a better player than Porter by a small bit. Witherspoon is the one that hurts us because by any measurable metric, Porter is a much better player than Witherspoon. Stingley and Ward are probably better and they make 30-31 million a year, but Porter is much better than Witherspoon and DW makes 33 million. I just hope he starts practicing after the preseason and gets the deal signed.

 

It's what happens when you have a weak CB on the opposite side. QB takes the easy completion.
This season could paint a whole other story if Samuel ends up looking as good as in preseason. Expect targets to JPJ to jump. Will he be up to the task? The Steelers have to be wondering.

 

Perspective from someone who signed

 

You should at least watch the podcasts who know what's going on and are closer to the team.

 

Thank you Brice but there ain’t not no way I am listening to an hour of Noah The Numbnut and his side kick Boo Boo to find out if McCarthy actually said “that Porter is not practicing because of a Business Decision.” Or was it one of the two talking heads taking liberties?

No where on the internet is this quote to be found.

Thanks

 

I think it's important to remember that 3-5th highest paid isn't the same as 3-5th best player.

Because cap inflation is really high in the NFL, newer contracts always increase in value.

The higher values are some kind of reflection on how good the player is AND how recently they signed their contract.

Really, no one in the league should be making more than Mahomes. But (1) his deal is old and was very long (even though I think they did some stuff to pay him more), and (2) he intentionally plays under market.

Tom Brady was never the highest paid player / QB in the league. But he was the best QB in the league for most of his career.

 

I tried watching this guy this offseason. But I just couldn't take the hyper-clickbaity titles.

 

But some of those guys have made the Pro Bowl or All-Pro Porte hasn't done that, I'm all for keeping JPJ but if he wants to be the highest paid CB that's probably not going to happen with the Steelers.

 

They start low because guys like Benton (and really Cam too) will take the team friendly deal.

If you gave Omar truth serum, he'd likely also tell us the players start a numbers that are super player friendly and not worth taking seriously.

 

You mean like in that first Bengals game when Chase was cooking Ramsey.

 

I'm fine making him the highest paid CB now (not after Gonzalez signs).

AAV doesn't mean as much as structure / guarantees.

My guess is that the real friction is more about guarantees than it is about AAV. Because fully guaranteed money is more important to players than AAV. Because players know that the AAV number doesn't mean much if you get cut in year 3 right when you non-guaranteed salary is supposed to jump.

 

I would be OK with this.

But the Steelers seem to dislike having incentive laden deals.

I think Rooney prefers to have cost certainty.

I don't know how the league treats escrow on incentives. Maybe this is why? It seems to be the reason that we don't like guarantees.

If the PA wanted more guaranteed money to go to players, I think they should push to reduce the amount owners have to keep in escrow for guarantees on contracts.

Seems to me that there's basically no chance that an NFL team isn't going to have the money. And if they didn't, just force the owner to sell in the offseason.

It's hard to imagine an NFL equivalent to the 90s Pens when they couldn't pay Mario.

 

Purely hypothetical here

But I just noticed that when Cam was doing a hold in his desire for a contract negotiation went nowhere

But he decided to start practicing and and his negotiations quickly came to fruition

The Steelers have a history of not negotiating with players under contract who are not in camp

For those that were able to understand the comment McCarthy said “Every one of us has a contract,” McCarthy said. “The organization, they have beliefs and so forth. So that's where we are.”

Is this the situation here

 

I'm not sure the Steelers want to make JPJ the highest paid CB, he wouldn't be the highest paid CB for long anyway because Gonzalez will get more than him.

 

Joey Porter Jr. had a legitimate breakout in 2025, but I would not pay him true top-five cornerback money yet.

In 2025, Porter reportedly:

• Allowed only a 48.5% completion rate in coverage
• Allowed roughly 5.0 yards per target
• Allowed a 57.2 passer rating when targeted
• Recorded a career-best 14 passes defended
• Posted a –7.0% completion percentage over expected, second among qualifying NFL cornerbacks
• Allowed about 0.8 yards per coverage snap, tied with elite corners such as Derek Stingley Jr. and A.J. Terrell
• Produced –0.7 EPA per target

That places him among the NFL’s better man-coverage outside corners, particularly against No. 1 receivers. His physicality and ability to disrupt routes at the line of scrimmage are real strengths.
The concern is that his résumé is still relatively short. Before 2025, PFF had him ranked only 26th among cornerbacks entering the season, and his 2024 coverage grade was just 56.3. He also had a reputation for penalties, even though that improved in 2025. In other words, he has one clearly elite statistical season rather than several consecutive ones.

My valuation:

Top-five money: approximately $28–32 million per year in the current market
Reasonable Porter extension: about $24–27 million per year, preferably over three or four years
Maximum I’d offer: roughly $28 million per year, with strong guarantees but an escape after two seasons
The answer changes if Pittsburgh believes his 2025 performance is sustainable and if he repeats it in 2026. At age 25–26, he is young enough that paying for his trajectory makes sense. But paying him like Sauce Gardner, Derek Stingley Jr., or another established multi-year shutdown corner would be aggressive.

Bottom line: Porter looks like a top-10 corner with top-five upside, not yet a proven top-five corner. I’d pay him near the top of the second tier, but I would avoid making him one of the five highest-paid cornerbacks unless his 2026 season confirms that 2025 was his new baseline.

 

i thought he was cooking slay.

 

Maybe it was both