Porter Jr.'s Back Now, Too

Joey Porter Jr. is listed questionable heading into Week 2, and the new wrinkle is a back issue layered on top of everything else. He was already navigating the injury that kept him out of the opener. The contract impasse with the organization remains unresolved. Now there's this.

I've been tracking this situation since training camp, when Porter Jr. and Jalen Ramsey both started on the PUP list and the cornerback room looked genuinely thin. Ramsey got back. Porter Jr. has been a different story at every turn — first the injury, then the stalemate McCarthy acknowledged publicly, then the opener he missed, and now a back flare that adds another layer of uncertainty to an already complicated situation.

The depth behind him — Car'lin Vigers, Donte Kent, Max Hurleman — hasn't logged meaningful production this season. That's not a knock; it's just where things stand. If Porter Jr. can't go again Sunday, Pittsburgh's secondary enters Week 2 short-handed in a way that the veteran safety additions from August can only partially address. Corners and safeties are not the same problem.

The contract piece hasn't moved publicly, and there's no indication it will before kickoff. At some point the injury and the business become hard to separate as a practical matter — whatever the cause, the result is the same corner not on the field.