At the end of the day, it’s a moot point, but those who played under Joey Porter are coming to his defense. Last week, DVE’s Mike Prisuta sent out a tweet hinting the decision to get rid of Porter was in large part due to chemistry. He cited Porter pitting the defense against the offense in a divisive manner as one of those reasons.
Three Steelers’ outside linebackers, Keion Adams, Bud Dupree, and Anthony Chickillo took to Twitter and refuted the report.
Porter’s contract would not be renewed for 2019, Mike Tomlin announced in a Friday press release.
Obviously, we’re never going to learn the real reasons why the team moved on from Porter. There’s likely a middle ground, a combination of lack of production, development, and coaching style that led to the team from moving on. For whatever it’s worth, it seems like the guys Porter coached liked playing for him, considering how hard they’re publicly sticking up for him.
Given how thin the Steelers were at the position depth chart wise, they carried just three on the 53 for most of the season, this is practically the entire room. The only two we haven’t heard from are T.J. Watt and Ola Adeniyi. Maybe they’ll add their thoughts later today.
This comes on the heels of the surprise canning of RBs coach James Saxon. According to at least one report, that decision has players upset too. Though changes were inevitable, they don’t seem to be going over well in the Steelers’ locker room.
Pittsburgh will announce Porter’s replacement in the coming weeks. You can check out the list we made of five candidates who make sense in replacing him.
Update: Ryan Shazier echos Adams’ sentiment.
