Pittsburgh gave up on a former second-round cornerback on October 1, and the price tells you how badly the relationship had rotted. The Steelers sent Joey Porter Jr. to the Dallas Cowboys for a 2028 second-round pick and a conditional 2027 sixth-rounder.
A 2028 second is not nothing. It is also nowhere near what a 26-year-old starting cornerback in his prime should fetch, and that gap is the whole story.
Why Pittsburgh Sold
Porter never signed an extension. He is in the final year of the four-year, $9.61 million rookie deal he signed in July 2023, and the two sides could not close the gap before Pittsburgh’s deadline at the start of the season. He had already asked for a trade.
The reported figures explain the standoff. Pittsburgh put an offer on the table worth north of $27 million, and Porter said no. ESPN’s Dan Graziano reported Porter was seeking roughly $30 million per season, a number only a handful of cornerbacks in the league actually clear. Pittsburgh’s internal evaluation was blunt: a productive starter who has never made a Pro Bowl.
Then it curdled. Porter did not take part in training camp and had not played a game in 2026, pointing to a back injury. The Steelers ruled him out again last week before dealing him. Steelers Depot’s reporting put it plainly, that a move had to be made with how ugly the situation had become.
The Steelers Had Cover
Pittsburgh would not have done this without replacements already on the field. Asante Samuel Jr. and rookie Daylen Everette played well enough that the front office decided it could live without Porter, which it had been doing all season anyway.
That is the honest read. Pittsburgh was not selling a player it needed. It converted a player it had stopped using into a future pick before the contract expired and he walked for nothing. At 2-2 after Thursday’s 27-24 loss in Cleveland, Mike McCarthy’s team has louder problems than cornerback depth, starting with an offensive line that let Aaron Rodgers get sacked five times.
What Dallas Is Actually Buying
The Cowboys needed bodies in the secondary. Dallas is 1-2 after a Week 3 loss to Baltimore, with Cobie Durant dealing with a hamstring and Shavon Revel working through knee and ankle problems. Porter is not a project.
The resume: 47 career games, 41 starts, 165 tackles, 31 pass breakups and three interceptions since Pittsburgh took him 32nd overall in 2023. In 2025 he allowed 35 catches on 66 targets for 412 yards with no touchdowns and one interception. That is a legitimate NFL starter who got into a contract fight, not a bust.
Dallas is not extending him right away, which is the smart version of this move. Defensive coordinator Christian Parker has developed physical man-coverage corners before, and the Cowboys get a half-season audition without committing anything long term to a player who has not appeared in a game this year.
Spending a 2028 second on a rental is aggressive for a 1-2 team, and Jerry Jones has made more aggressive bets than this. Pittsburgh took the only deal available to it. Porter gets a fresh market and a defensive coordinator with a track record, which is a better outcome than either side looked likely to get a week ago.
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.