The early returns on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 draft class were very strong. It was Omar Khan’s first draft in charge of making the picks as the general manager along with assistant GM Andy Weidl. While one season isn’t enough to draw hard conclusions, they appear to have found the next generation of building blocks for the franchise. One of the standouts among the group was CB Joey Porter Jr., who was taken with the first pick of the second round via the Chicago Bears’ pick from the Chase Claypool trade.
Ike Taylor appeared on the Bleav In Steelers podcast on Mark Bergin’s YouTube channel and was asked about Porter’s rookie season.
“When you coming in as a rookie and you play cornerback and you going to Las Vegas because you got [the] opportunity to get a defensive player of the year as a rookie, that says a lot about JP Jr.,” Taylor said. “When you talk about a guy who was bred up in the locker room…when they bred up in the locker room it go two different ways, either they feel entitled because they living off they dad’s name or they just wanna make their own story. JP Jr., he’s creating his own story in his own book.”
The Steelers have tended to gravitate towards NFL bloodlines over the years, drafting several players whose fathers or siblings were in the NFL. Porter has the unique distinction among those of having his father actually play for the Steelers as a star outside linebacker from 1999 to 2006. He was quite literally raised in the locker room. To Taylor’s point, he is already carving out his own name and stepping out from the shadow of his father before him.
Porter didn’t receive his first start until Week 8, but once he took over, he was an instant success. He was tasked with covering opposing teams’ top receivers, starting with DeAndre Hopkins in Week Nine against the Tennessee Titans, and locked almost all of those top receivers down the rest of the season.
“For me, I would give him an ‘A’ on what he did when he came in,” Taylor said. “He asked the coaches if he could check the team’s best receivers, and the coaches said yes and he wind up handling his business…I would give him an ‘A plus’ for a rookie to come in and have that mentality.”
While his shadowing of top receivers started out as a strategic move on Tomlin’s part to limit his exposure to the run game, his performance was good enough to justify it for the rest of the season.
Porter was one of five finalists for the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year award. He didn’t win, with the award going to Will Anderson Jr. of the Houston Texans, but he did receive one first-place vote from one of the 50 voters on the panel.
One of the top tasks this offseason will be finding a long-term option opposite Porter. Whether it be in free agency or the 2024 NFL Draft, the Steelers could see their secondary become a strength rather than the weakness it has been for years.
