Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported it plainly this week: the Steelers are willing to trade Joey Porter Jr. The holdup is that nobody wants to pay what Pittsburgh is asking, which is reportedly a premium pick, possibly a first-rounder.
That is a lot to request for a cornerback who has not played a snap this season.
The contract standoff behind all of this
Porter is 26 and in the final year of his rookie deal. Pittsburgh took him 32nd overall, the first pick of the second round, in 2023 and signed him to a four-year contract worth roughly $9.6 million. He is due $3.9 million in base salary this season.
Because he went in the second round, there is no fifth-year option to fall back on. Pittsburgh either extends him or loses him, and extension talks have gone nowhere. The two sides negotiated right up until the day before the season and never got close. The Steelers do not negotiate during the season, so that door is shut until at least January.
Porter spent all of training camp on the PUP list with a back injury. He was inactive for the opener against Atlanta, ruled out 90 minutes before kickoff. By this week his designation had shifted to NIR/conditioning, which is the league’s polite way of saying the issue is no longer really an injury.
Read that sequence however you like. It does not look like a player and a team headed toward a happy resolution.
What he is actually worth
The tape is better than the noise. In 2025, Porter held opposing quarterbacks under a 49 percent completion rate and under a 57.2 passer rating when targeted. He has not surrendered a touchdown in coverage since Week 8 of his rookie year. That is real CB1 production.
What he does not have is a clean availability record or any leverage. Rapoport pointed to Kansas City, Detroit and the Giants as teams to watch, and all three face the same math: you surrender high draft capital and then immediately authorize a large extension for a player you have never had in your building. That combination is why no serious talks have materialized.
Pittsburgh should move him, but not at that price
Yes, trade him. Also, drop the first-round fantasy.
The Steelers already told the market what they think of Porter by refusing to pay him, and the market already told the Steelers what it thinks of the asking price by not calling. When both sides have been that clear, the worst outcome is doing nothing and watching him walk in March for a compensatory pick two drafts from now.
A second-round pick is the fair landing spot. If Kansas City or Detroit will part with a second plus a Day 3 sweetener, take it and move on. Pittsburgh is built to win right now behind a defense with real corner depth, and a 42-year-old quarterback’s final season is not the year to burn resources on a standoff the front office has already decided to lose.
Holding out for a first is how teams end up with nothing at all.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.