Porter Jr. Still Questionable — On and Off the Field

Joey Porter Jr. is listed questionable for the opener, which is the smaller of the two problems. The larger one is that his contract situation remains at an impasse, with head coach Mike McCarthy acknowledging as much publicly back in late August. Pittsburgh opens the season without a clear answer on whether its cornerstone cornerback has a long-term future here.

The secondary context makes it worse. Both Porter Jr. and Jalen Ramsey began training camp on the physically unable to perform list, leaving the cornerback room thin for most of August. Ramsey got back on the field by late August, which helped. The organization also added three veteran safeties in a span of three weeks to shore up depth. But those are stopgap moves. Porter Jr. is the piece that isn't replaceable off a depth chart.

Pittsburgh went out and committed $72 million over four years to Keeanu Benton in August — the richest deal ever for a defensive lineman in franchise history — so the organization clearly isn't shy about locking up its defensive core. The Porter Jr. stalemate, then, is a genuine impasse rather than a posturing gap. The Steelers open a season in which they've said they want to stop winning close and start winning comfortably, and they're doing it with their best corner both hurt and unsigned.