While Pittsburgh Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. had a strong rookie season in 2023, he had one enduring bugaboo. He managed to clean up his tackling over the course of the year but not his penalties. He drew eight accepted penalties, of which six were for pass interference or holding. He also drew a fourth pass interference penalty that was declined.
Porter obviously isn’t happy when the officials flag him—he even disputed one in the preseason opener. While he admits that coaches talk about wearing gloves that match the jersey to make infractions less apparent, he says he’s not focusing on that.
Porter switched from yellow gloves in the first preseason game to white in the second, matching the opponents’ jerseys. Was it merely a coincidence after officials penalized him a week earlier on a play he disputed? Or did it make that change intentionally, hoping to make any holding infractions less visible and thus harder to call?
“Nah, that’s not true; it was whatever I felt like putting on that night”, Porter told Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently. “I’ve been seeing those things. People have told me in the past. Definitely, there’s DB coaches who will say to wear the same color as the team’s jersey. I try here and there, but I really don’t think about it too much”.
One of “those things” Porter might be referring to is a post on X by Alex Kozora pointing out that exact thing this past week. More and more we notice people “hearing” and “seeing” and “reading” things from some unmentioned source. Less often from players—more often from radio hosts and beat writers during press conferences, but I digress.
And so Joey Porter Jr.’s white gloves matching the Bills’ uniforms last week was only a coincidence. But he said that he wants to do a better job of getting to know the officials. Last year, he talked about learning the value of befriending the referees. This year, he wants to know which crews are more likely to throw which types of flags.
A 2023 second-round pick, Joey Porter Jr. evolved into the Steelers’ lockdown cornerback over the course of his rookie season. Now established in that role, he hopes to take the next steps as the NFL’s top cornerback.
He can start by cutting down on his penalties because most of the rest is just maintaining. Porter already fixed his tackling, as I’ve already talked about, and he knows how to cover. But we can’t have him drawing pass interference penalties rather than giving up long catches—the end result is usually the same, or so similar as to make no difference.
If Porter keeps having these issues, we’ll see if his wardrobe starts to change. He may want to have some orange, brown, and purple gloves on-hand, because he’ll need them every year. And plenty of white, of course, for the home games. The yellow gloves look cool with the Steelers’ uniforms, I admit, but the yellow penalty flags—not as cool.
