The Pittsburgh Steelers activating cornerback Joey Porter Jr. from the Active/PUP list Sunday as part of a number of roster moves ahead of the 6 PM/ET cutdown deadline was encouraging, but it doesn’t exactly signal that there’s any progress in contract talks between the two sides. Porter is now eligible to return to practice and will have the chance to get ready to go for the season opener Sept.
13 against the Atlanta Falcons at Acrisure Stadium after missing all of training camp and not doing much on the field during the offseason, too. It remains to be seen if he’ll actually practice, but the option is now there. That could lead to a contract extension, too.
“I still expect them to get a deal done before the end of next week. We’ll see,” the Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac said Monday morning on 102.5 WDVE. “I think some of that’s gonna have to be some more realistic negotiating on maybe the other side. I don’t know the number, but obviously the fact that they’ve been nowhere near getting a deal done means that somebody probably wants way too much money. “But I still believe, because they want to sign him, I still believe they’ll get a deal done because we see this happen many, many times.”
The Steelers have made it clear that they want to sign Porter; they just want to do it at their number. Porter, like any player in negotiations, has his own number in mind and isn’t budging. The cornerback market has boomed this summer with Cleveland’s Denzel Ward and Seattle’s Devon Witherspoon getting market-resetting deals.
That puts Porter in a good position to ask for more, especially coming off a great 2025 season in which he held quarterbacks to under a 50% completion rate when he was targeted in coverage.
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The veteran also cleaned up his penalties and was a sound tackler on the perimeter, showing major improvement in that area. But he is coming into the season under a new coaching staff and a relatively new defensive scheme, and there are questions about his overall fit and play style under coordinator Patrick Graham. Reports indicated that the coaching staff wasn’t happy with how he handled the offseason, conducting a hold-in during OTAs and minicamp, and then having a back injury flare up on training camp report day, which landed him on the Active/PUP list. That’s all behind him, though. Now, he needs to return to practice. Though a possibility of a holdout is still there, Dulac doesn’t see that happening.
“I still think he doesn’t have many options, and the ones he does aren’t very good,” Dulac added. “If I were a betting man that he will be there against Atlanta one way or another. But I just believe they’ll get a deal done because I know they’d like to. But they’re not gonna break the bank just to get a deal done with Joey Porter.”
Nor should they. But deadlines spur actions, and the Steelers are fast approaching the start of the regular season. When push comes to shove, it’s hard to believe a deal won’t get done.
