NFL · 4 hours ago

Even If Steelers Joey Porter Jr. Plays Sunday. How Much Will He Play?

Bo Marchionte

Host · Writer

How Much Does He Play? Even If He Suits Up.

The Joey Porter Jr. conversation has spent weeks living in the financial district.

Maybe Mike McCarthy just moved part of it onto a stopwatch.

Porter’s contract situation remains unresolved with the Steelers only days from Sunday’s opener against the Atlanta Falcons. Pittsburgh has made an offer, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, but the sides reportedly aren’t close enough to suggest a deal is imminent.

Meanwhile, Porter appears to be ramping up towards the opener.

While team sessions are prohibited from media the true impact he is making on the practice field is diminished with positional drills. Today Porter Jr. at least the portion witnessed wasn’t participating but with the secondary unit in drills.

When we leave and gate is closed behind us we don’t know the true extent of Porter Jr. and is participation in practices.

Wish I could tell yah.

The Amount of Playing Still Remains Unknown

That creates a second question hiding underneath the much louder contract question: Even if Porter decides to play Sunday, exactly how much Porter Jr. can Pittsburgh reasonably play?

McCarthy provided a window into that Wednesday without providing a number.

“Yeah, but we’ll see,” McCarthy said when asked whether Porter’s practice workload could indicate his Sunday snap count. “Once again, let’s get him through today. Hopefully he’ll do a lot more today than he did Monday.”

Then came the interesting part.

“There’s GPS. There’s feedback, and the trainers and strength coaches all have input into that.”

That isn’t coach-speak for we have no idea.

It’s load management.

Porter spent training camp on the physically unable to perform list because of a back issue and didn’t return to practice until last week. McCarthy has repeatedly described what followed as a “ramp-up” process.

The problem is Porter isn’t normally a part-time corner.

He has essentially been a leave-him-out-there defender.

In 2024, Porter played 971 defensive snaps, or 94 percent of Pittsburgh’s defensive workload. Last season he played 894 snaps again 94 percent despite appearing in only 14 games.

That makes Sunday different.

The question isn’t whether Porter knows how to play 60 snaps.

It’s whether several days of progressively increased practice work can safely replace the conditioning base normally constructed over an entire training camp.

McCarthy isn’t pretending his eyes provide the entire answer.

The GPS data can tell Pittsburgh how much ground Porter covered, how fast he moved, how often he reached high-speed thresholds and how his workload compares with what the Steelers expect from him on Sunday.

Then the training and strength staffs add the human element: how he responded, how he recovered and whether the next day’s workload can increase.

That explains McCarthy’s wording.

Monday wasn’t the test. It was a data point. Wednesday becomes another one.

And then there’s the other clock

None of this eliminates the contract.

Porter remains in the final year of his rookie deal, and Pittsburgh’s longstanding practice of shutting down contract negotiations once the regular season begins has turned the next several days into a deadline.

Porter previously stopped short of guaranteeing he would play Week 1 without an extension.

So Pittsburgh is dealing with two separate countdowns.

One belongs to the front office.

The other belongs to McCarthy, the trainers and a GPS monitor.

And even if the first one gets resolved before Atlanta arrives, the second doesn’t magically disappear.

Porter has spent the previous two seasons playing 94 percent of Pittsburgh’s defensive snaps. Sunday may require something considerably different.

That’s what makes McCarthy’s answer more revealing than it initially sounds.

He didn’t say Porter would play every snap if he’s available.

He didn’t establish a pitch count, either.

He essentially said Pittsburgh is going to let Porter’s body and the numbers attached to it make part of that decision.

Which leads us back to the contract.

The contract determines whether No. 24 walks onto the field on Sunday.