It was beginning to look like a solid debut season for Cory Trice Jr. after his first two games, including a very strong performance against the Denver Broncos in Week 2. Then he suffered a hamstring injury that held him out all the way until other injuries in the secondary forced him back into the lineup in Week 16.
He’s played over 45 snaps in each of the past two games. His return against the Baltimore Ravens was rough with signs of rust from all the time missed, but he looked very solid against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Steelers said they would ride the hot hand between James Pierre and Trice to help fill in for Joey Porter Jr., and it would appear that hot hand belonged to Trice. Pierre had just 18 defensive snaps compared to Trice’s 47.
They didn’t pick on Trice in this game, and he even managed to make a couple impressive plays both in coverage and as a tackler.
He didn’t quite match his impressive 90.1 PFF grade from Week 2, but he logged a very strong 83.9 as one of the top five Steelers of the game. That included an “elite” 90.1 coverage grade.
They didn’t throw into Trice’s coverage often, but PFF charted him for allowing two receptions on three targets for 12 yards, and just four yards after the catch.
There were several plays where Trice allowed little to no separation either on vertical routes downfield or in and out of breaks on crossers or out routes. For a large corner, his footwork is very strong and he is sticky in coverage.
Here he is covering up an out route.
Here he is running with DeAndre Hopkins on a go route.
And here he is covering up a quick crosser to Marquise Brown. He does a nice job breaking inside and using his length to obscure Brown’s vision to help force an incompletion.
One of the few receptions he allowed was arguably not a reception at all. It was the play that looked like Brown used the ground to assist his catch. The Chiefs ran another play quick so nobody could challenge or review, but Trice did a nice job hitting him right as he caught the ball to force what should have been an incompletion.
He tackled the catch here against Travis Kelce, but he allowed the first down. He was a bit slow to process the play and maybe could have prevented the extra few yards of YAC. It would have been a first down either way.
His most impressive play of the game was against Kelce. Mahomes dumped it off to Kelce with plenty of room to run. Trice took an aggressive angle to beat the block. It could have backfired giving up the sideline to Kelce, but he closed quickly and made a fantastic tackle.
This play isn’t going to stick out to many, but Trice helped prevent it from potentially being a touchdown. Juju Smith-Schuster has always been a good blocker, but Trice does a great job standing him up and not giving up ground on the block. Smith-Schuster was unable to widen the hole at all and Kelce had nowhere to go.
If Joey Porter Jr. can get healthy for the playoffs, the secondary could be in much better shape with Trice ramping up. He also looks to be on a strong trajectory for the 2025 season.
