McCarthy Says It Was the Injury

Pittsburgh got the win, and now McCarthy is drawing a line: Joey Porter Jr. sat out the opener because of his health, not his contract. That's the coach's position, and it's worth noting on its own. The Porter Jr. situation spent most of the summer tangled in two separate problems—an undisclosed training camp injury that landed him on the PUP list alongside Jalen Ramsey, and a contract negotiation that McCarthy himself called an "impasse" back in August. Separating those two threads in public is a deliberate move.

Ramsey, for his part, was active and played. That matters because both corners started camp in the same place, and one of them found his way back onto the field for Week 1. Porter Jr. did not, and the organization's explanation is now formally on the record as medical rather than financial.

The contract piece hasn't gone anywhere. The impasse McCarthy acknowledged before the season hasn't been resolved, at least not publicly, and nothing in the last two weeks suggests it has. So the Steelers have a win, a healthy Ramsey, and a cornerback situation that is one game old and still unresolved. They'll take the win. The rest follows them into Week 2.