What’s next for the Pittsburgh Steelers at the cornerback position? Well, depending on exactly what that means, it can become harder to predict. This season, the expectation is for Patrick Peterson and Levi Wallace to be the team’s starting outside cornerbacks, at least at the outset. But what about 2024? What might the next starting tandem that actually hangs around for a while look like? Could they already be on the team?
Well, that’s what they were hoping during the 2023 NFL Draft with the two cornerbacks that they took. First up with Joey Porter Jr. 32nd overall at the top of the second round. It wasn’t until the middle of the seventh that they landed Cory Trice Jr. But as he told reporters back in mid-June, he got what he wanted.
Via audio provided by the team’s media department, the defensive backs coach was half-heartedly asked if he’d manifested this secondary as it’s taken shape this offseason, given the connections he’s had to many of the players. “I will say this: the two guys we drafted were the two guys I hoped we drafted”, he responded.
Porter was widely expected to be a first-round draft pick, and in any normal year 32 would be in the first round. Still, many analysts—and Porter himself—felt that he might go much higher, in the middle of the first.
As for Trice, while he was not evaluated at the same level of skill and performance, many believed that he was no worse than a mid-round talent, some having him as high as a potential day-two candidate in the second or third rounds.
That he was available in the seventh round was principally due to concerns over his health, having suffered a major injury in 2021, from which he continued to recover at the outset of the 2022 season, playing the early games with a brace.
“Think about these young guys, we’re blessed, and I’m excited to coach these guys and come up with schemes and packages to affect the quarterback”, Brown said, not just of Porter and Trice but of all the new pieces he’ll have to work with, but certainly with special acknowledgement of the rookie cornerback duo.
While Porter is expected to fight for an early defensive role, perhaps even starting as quickly as the regular season opener, Trice is more of a long-term prospect. The Steelers still have Peterson and Wallace, after all, both of whom are proven veteran commodities.
Wallace is only under contract through 2023, however, and with Peterson transitioning to a potential slot-heavy role in the defense, who knows what the future might look like? Could we see Porter and Trice on the outside and Peterson on the inside by September 2024? That’s certainly the dream a lot of fans are envisioning. But we’ve got a long way to go before any of that happens.
