Joey Porter Jr contract negotiations

My understanding is that JPJ's deal probably won't increase his 1st year cap hit by all that much...maybe a couple million.

But there are other things that happen too. And we like to take ~ $10MM of space into the season.

Hopefully it's a sign that Porter's deal will get done soon...but it doesn't have to be. This is something we almost certainly had to do either way.

 

This is why some of us were hoping they would sign him 1st before any of the others got signed

 

I think Revis was like this too. Surf the cap appreciation on one year deals until you think you aren't going to be elite anymore. Then sign a deal with term and take advantage of how teams often overpay older elite players because of name recognition.

You have to wonder if / how much Ramsey is in Porter's ear about his contract status. While not on the same level as Cousins (and I think Revis), Ramsey has also been a "show me the money" guy. Which I think is probably want I'd be if I was a very good NFL player too.

 

that is the thing, he is under contract this year with a new coach and a new defense, yet he hasn't taken the field. honor the contract you signed and show you can do it in this new defense. very simple the steelers right now hold all the cards. he isn't doing himself or the team any favors right now. he can think and have stats about how good he is or thinks he is but has stood around throwing a hissy fit instead of being a team player to this point. he signed the deal honor it. he's not.

 

Yep.

But players also know that waiting pays.

And my guess is that guys like Porter and Watt who have close family members who were very good players who went through difficult negotiations are more prepared to wait on contract 2.

 

Witherspoon was also under contract this year.

Porter isn't doing anything to violate his contract currently.

And the fact that he's under contract this year and we can tag him two years after that is why the contract would "only" be ~ $33MM. If he was going into his 3rd contract, it would be an even higher number. because he current year's salary would be closer to market value than the last year of his rookie deal (which is a dramatic underpayment when you hit on a player).

I showed a framework on how to get to a number upthread. The first 3 years are pretty set (this year's contract, then 2x tags). How the 3rd and 4th new year get priced in is more difficult (at least to me).

And that's just to get to an AAV that makes sense. How the structure works is probably where most of the negotiation comes.

 

I just don’t like the guy now. It’s that simple. Greed is greed you can justify it all you want. There is always a risk it could be a Leveon Bell situation. Again when is enough money enough money? Don’t say your team first and then make it all about you. That’s the problem with our society everyone applauds the guy for trying to get as much as he can. It’s actually immoral. By doing this he is screwing over the whole team. Again I heavily believe this is personal and his Dad is behind the scenes here partly trying to stick it to the Steelers. There is a better way to go about things. The quality human beings of the NFL rarely handle it this way. The Heath Millers and Troy Polamalu’s those guts were always greatful and appreciative and easy to root for. I really hope we trade Porter at this point.

 

When every team on average makes 40 to 45 million dollars a game, let me repeat, a game, then you can ask for 30 million for a year. The NFL is not the WNBA. Each team makes a lot of money

 

‘He absolutely is violating his contract. He is faking an injury so he doesn’t get fined for chooosng not to participate in team practices. It’s bull**** and a crappy way of doing things. He is turning a lot of fans off with his shenanigans. I understand wanting to be fairly compensated but who the hell do you think you are to want to be the highest paid at your position when you didn’t earn that? Watt was the only other Steeler that did this as far as wanting to be -aid the highest at his position and at least he had some what of a right with his track record even though it soured me on him as well and by doing that with Watt it hurt the Steelers as he hasn’t lived up to the contract. Now with JPJ he is younger and just entering his prime but he needs to clean up the penalities and show that is t just one year, he needs to tackle better and support the run a hell of lot better. He needs to get better in some defense. He isn’t the best cb.

 

Number one paid CB has 2 ints in his career, has given up 11 tds in 3 years.
JPJ has 3 ints in his career, and has given up 1 td in 3 years.
Think what you like.
Hes better than what you think

 

Have you ever owned a business? It’s easy for you to spend the owners money when it isn’t your money. I do t know if that’s true or not as far as 40 million a game. But I can assure you that isn’t net. They have a lot of expenditure other than just player salary, they have rent on the stadium, stadium employees, stafff employees, vendors, utilities, insurance, health insurance, food costs, drink costs, everything e;we associated with the venue cost amongst a zillion other expenditures. You just love cb’s so you don’t care what they spend on one as long as they sign him. It’s just more about how he is going about things and the fact he expects to be the number one paid cb that really irks me. The door can’t hit him in the ass fast enough as far as I am concerned. Two things I can’t stand are greed and ego and JPJ has both of them.

 

The Seahawks messed up paying Witherspoon that much. What about Gonzalez, Gardner, Mitchell, Ward, McDuffie, Stingley? Is Porter better than all of those guys? He is a great cb but don’t come in and say you want to be the number one paid guy. Don’t fake an injury and hold in. It is so incredibly selfish.

 

Im only giving you the highest paid CB to show the comparaison. If those others were the highest paid, Id have done them.

 

That's obviously your right. Some people really disliked Bell after his contract dispute stuff went. I try not to hold that against players myself, because I think I'd try to trade my life/health span for as much money as I could if I was in the NFL...but I completely think it's reasonable that other people don't feel that way.

I'm sure people also felt this way about Ward, TJ, and Ben at different times.

Sometimes that dislike probably faded (especially if the player continued to play well IMO).

Sometimes that dislike stayed the same or increased.

IIRC, even Troy had some contract issues very early in his career. And there was some friction with how he left the team. I think he wanted to keep playing, but we said we wouldn't play him...and maybe something about us not wanting to release him...can't exactly remember though. Troy did allude to this in his HoF induction, saying that it wasn't his choice to retire...but ultimately he now thought it was the right thing for him. I can't imagine myself ever liking a player more than I like(d) Troy. Not only incredibly exciting to watch pay the game, but just seems like a good person. Which is why I wanted Najee to work out better than he did with us too.

 

By the way the Steelers just restructured Metcalf contract to free up cap space so it looks like they are going to at least try to get Porter signed. These guys making all this money in professional sports isn’t going to last forever. The bubble is going to burst at some point. It is getting a little ridiculous. It’s offensive to a degree as a common fan to see them Squabble over this amount of money. I don’t understand how nobody else doesn’t get offended by it. I always respected ups\that took a little less than they were valued at to leave some n he tb;e to get other players signed. It sowed a little humility and it made it a little less bout them.

 

Yeah but he hits like a freight train and his run defense is better. I don’t know how they compare in zone defense. But you’re right in what matters JPJ beats him but I’m still not paying JPJ that much especially after the way he has acted out se`ts a bad precedent.

 

There's nothing that he's doing that's against the CBA or his contract.

Players don't put themselves on PUP...they don't take themselves off of PUP either. If you think him being on the PUP is violating the CBA (or some contract), it's the team that puts guys on those lists.

I think people often confuse being the highest paid player at a position vs. being the best player at a position. These two things are only loosely related in the NFL. Timing really matters here. Especially giving the insane cap inflation in the NFL.

Witherspoon is the highest paid CB in the league right now.

If you're Porter and you look at Witherspoon, how do you say "I deserve 10% ($29.7MM/year) to 15% ($28MM) less than that guy".

He just doesn't. They are comparable players. I think it's reasonable to say that either one of them is the better player. But Porter isn't significantly less valuable than Witherspoon.

 

I don't because I see how much the NFL is making. The player are who people go to see , not the owner, so the players should get a good piece of the pie.

 

‘the players definitely get a piece of the pie and that’s partly what is a little annoying here. When a player is all about themself it’s not the owner they are hurting because the owners spend nearly up to the salary cap every year it’s the other players on the team because there is less to go around. JPJ is t the only player on the team.

 

No, but him and Zack Frazier are the best young players we have, so it would be unwise to lose either. They are the cornerstones of our next great team.

 

That is true and the Steelers put the,selves in this position. They should have known the player they were dealing with and his agent. They should have signed him a long time ago to avoid all of this. The Browns always sign their guys in the spring and they reset the market and it screws all the other nfl teams. I often wonder if they do that crap on purpose. They did it with their edge we don’t need to use his name and with Ward just this year.

 

This

 

Indeed. If I put my emotions aside of course I want to resign Porter but man it’s annoying as a fan.

 

Put them aside. We need those two young men for the future.

 

Something else I just thought of.

The Witherspoon contract is more constrained than the Porter contract too. This might be why it got done earlier...and might also be why Porter could argue for more money.

With Porter we only have control of his NFL future for 3 years. This year (final year of his contract), and 2x tag years. Because Porter was a 2nd round pick (32 overall though). So if we did a 4 year extension (adds 4 new years), two of those years are unconstrained UFA years.

But Witherspoon was taken in the first round. So they have control over him for 4 years. They have the 4th year of his rookie deal. They exercised his 5th year option. Then they could tag him 2x after that. Witherspoon signed a 4 year extension, but only one of those years is an unconstrained UFA year.

So the math might work out for Porter's deal to be bigger than Witherspoons because the team is "buying more UFA years" if it's a 4 year extension.

Maybe this is a sticking point in the negotiations too. Maybe the team wants 4 years around what Witherspoon made (or less). But Porter is pushing for only 3 year extension (one UFA year like witherspoon) if the AAV is the same?

Kind of funny. Because after he was drafted, I think Porter was (reasonably) trying to argue that his guaranteed money in the rookie deal should be like a 1st round pick because he was pick 32. But it probably helps him not that he panned out because he gets the extra year of UFA here.

It was probably smart of SEA to get Witherspoon done this year. I think a lot of teams would have waited until next year to do the deal because they still had 2 years of control before using tags. But I think the cost of CBs will be a lot higher next offseason than it is this year.

This isn't something the Steelers have really had to face recently because none of our 1st round picks have been good enough to get 5th year options.