Joey Porter Jr has been one of the better young corners in football since Pittsburgh grabbed him with the first pick of the second round back in 2023, and now his name is popping up in trade conversations he almost certainly didn't ask for. Jordan Schultz reported that multiple teams around the league have wondered whether the Steelers might be open to moving him, with Porter entering the last season of his rookie contract.
The timing matters. Porter opened training camp on the active/PUP list with a back injury and, according to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Gerry Dulac, he and the Steelers hadn't even had serious extension talks as camp got underway. Beat reporters still expect a deal to eventually get done, but "eventually" isn't the same as "done," and that gap is exactly the kind of thing that gets rival front offices making calls.
It's worth remembering who Porter is in Pittsburgh before assuming the Steelers would actually pull the trigger. He's a legacy pick, the son of Joey Porter Sr, who spent 8 seasons terrorizing quarterbacks for the Steelers as a linebacker. The younger Porter has quietly turned into one of the league's better corners at a position where the market has exploded, with recent deals for players like Devon Witherspoon and Christian Gonzalez resetting expectations for what a top-tier CB gets paid.
That market spike is the real subplot here. Porter is reportedly projected to land somewhere near the back end of the top-10 cornerback earners, with one estimate putting a new deal around 4 years and $112 million. That's real money for a player currently making a base salary in the $3.9 million range this season — a gap that puts pressure on both sides to figure this out before it becomes a distraction.
None of this means a trade is imminent, or even likely. Teams "wondering" about a player isn't the same as the Steelers shopping him, and Pittsburgh has shown no public inclination to move on from a homegrown, Pro Bowl-caliber corner they just spent 3 seasons developing. But every week that passes without an extension gives outside teams more reason to keep asking, and gives Steelers fans one more thing to sweat out during camp.
Keep an eye on how quickly Pittsburgh moves once Porter is fully healthy. If talks stay stalled deep into the preseason, this rumor only gets louder — and if a real extension gets signed, it probably goes away overnight.