The Pittsburgh Steelers added Donte Jackson this offseason to pair with Joey Porter Jr. at cornerback. It has been a fruitful pairing so far, the veteran with three interceptions. Neither of them is perfect—no cornerback is—but they are working and growing together.
And Jackson is making sure to keep Porter hungry. He knows they haven’t played that long together, but he knows how good they can be. And to get there, they have to keep working, even on the bye week. That was his guidance for the second-year cornerback over the break.
“We didn’t play a lot of ball, [but] we played a lot of good ball”, Jackson said of his time with Porter, via the Steelers’ website. “Top of the league in a lot of categories. But that means nothing; we’ve just got to keep on working. Because nobody will care what we did before the bye week if we don’t come out this bye week with our head on right, ready to detail our work.
“That’s really been the message for both of us. Me being an older guy, that’s been the message to him, just to keep growing, keep coming in every day willing to work and to keep getting better. The best thing about this league, you always have new opportunities to grow, new opportunities to get better. That’s really gonna be the model. I know it is for me”.
The Steelers drafted Joey Porter Jr. at the top of the second around a year ago. They slowly worked him into the starting lineup, but that process paid off in the long run. Now their next step for his development was to pair him with a savvy veteran who could still play. They tried that with Patrick Peterson last year, but they were not satisfied with his performance on the field. Enter Donte Jackson, a March trade acquisition.
Over the first eight weeks, Jackson has three interceptions with six passes defensed. He has 24 tackles, including two for loss, and some very good open-field tackles. Porter has one interception so far with three passes defensed and 32 tackles, with two for loss. He has also made some nice plays in the open field.
Granted, the Steelers’ cornerback tandem is far from flawless. Both of them do miss tackles at times, particularly Jackson more recently. He also has the occasional lapse in coverage while Porter is prone to penalties.
On the whole, however, they are the best cornerback duo the Steelers have had since Joe Haden and Steven Nelson. Porter is the lockdown guy, but like with Nelson, Jackson’s presence has them asking him to do that less. That is the advantage of having two quality cornerbacks because you can trust either one with any assignment. Having a cornerback who can shadow a top receiver is nice, but it’s better if you can get by without doing that.
