Through the first three games of his Pittsburgh Steelers career, rookie CB Joey Porter Jr. has not played a single snap on defense that wasn’t either as a dime defender or as an injury fill-in. That has still translated into 48 defensive snaps and an increasing amount of work, but that’s not a sustainable model for progressive exposure. His snap count has only gone up because dime usage has gone up due to in-game circumstances.
It leaves one to wonder when we might see him contributing more for his own merits in a bigger role. He’s generally held his own when he has been in the game, and he’s even made some big plays, particularly in the second game, with a key pass defensed and on the final competitive play in coverage to force a turnover on downs.
“I showed I can hang with the best of them with my technique and everything”, the second-round pick told Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week when, yet again, asked about his playing time. “I just got to keep stacking those days and making the plays that come to me”.
He’s been asked a similar line of questioning every week and he’s given similar answers. The bottom line, he can’t control what the men upstairs think, he can only give them every reason to want to put him in the game.
For many fans, they will have already reached the point at which they do want him in the game over either Levi Wallace or Patrick Peterson, or at least in a heavier rotation. Or they want to see him as the nickel defender with Peterson moving into the slot.
That is the one caveat to this discussion, because Porter’s playing time, barring injury, basically means Peterson playing in the slot. That hadn’t been in his arsenal in any meaningful way prior to this season, but his work has picked up there, seeing 17 slot snaps against the Las Vegas Raiders and another seven in the box.
But is that what has been holding Porter in the lineup, or are the coaches letting him marinate like they are with most of the other rookies? DL Keeanu Benton is playing as much as he is only due to Cameron Heyward’s injury, to say nothing of the quality of work he has delivered in that opportunity.
But the only variable Porter can control is the work he puts into each week. I’ll note that 2016 first-round CB Artie Burns began his career as the dime defender. I believe he moved into a nickel role within a few games and was starting on a full-time basis by the second half of the season.
“I feel like it’s going pretty good. I’m stacking days every time I get on the field with those guys”, Porter said, for his part. “The communication is going well”. So is his play, by and large, at least when it comes to one-on-one coverage. But it’s everything else that goes along with being one of 11 on a unit that the Steelers have to grow comfortable with before they shove him out there for 70-plus snaps a game.
