As the established No. 1 cornerback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Joey Porter Jr. is locked into his role.
He’s the alpha at the position, not only in Pittsburgh, but he believes in the NFL, too.
That doesn’t mean he’s not humble and isn’t willing to take some pointers from teammates, especially veteran cornerback Donte Jackson, who was acquired via trade this offseason and brings six years of experience as a starting NFL cornerback.
According to Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, Porter is eager to learn and wants to take in as much information as possible from Jackson.
“It’s always good, I think, when you have a good pro, which I think Donte is. All the guys, they want to talk to you about your experiences and the things that you’ve done and maybe how you’ve done things differently, because they’ve come from a different system, a different way of doing things,” Austin said, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “And…I think it’s really good that Donte’s helpful that way. And I think it’s really good that Joey wants to learn that, because I think that’s really important for a young guy.
“You can get good information from a lot of different areas, and I think trying to find it out is the key. If you’re searching to get it, I think that’s good for you as a player.”
Always improving, always looking for ways to improve. That’s the key for players in all professional sports, especially young ones.
While Porter had an outstanding rookie season, developing quickly into a true shutdown cornerback who handled the top receiving weapon weekly in the Steelers’ defense, especially late in the season, there is still room for improvement.
Any tips and tricks he can pick up from a guy like Jackson, who has been there, done that, will only help in his development.
Last season, Porter had some struggles early with tackling and saw quite a few flags thrown his way for holding and pass interference. As a physical cornerback, that’s going to happen in coverage. However, he cleaned it up, and he really fixed his tackling issues in the process.
Now, he needs to convert some of his pass breakups into interceptions, which is something Jackson knows well, having recorded 14 interceptions in his first six seasons.
Though they are different-style cornerbacks, Porter is on the right track picking Jackson’s brain and trying to learn all that he can to make him that complete, dominant cornerback as he continues to search for ways to improve and take his game to another level.
