While the thought this week was that Pittsburgh Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. would shadow Cincinnati Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase, the Steelers made the decision to put Porter on WR Tee Higgins, who had 14 receptions for 288 yards and a touchdown in his last two games against the Steelers. Higgins still had a good performance with five receptions for 69 yards and a touchdown while he also drew penalties on Porter, who had four on the day. After the 44-38 Steelers win, head coach Mike Tomlin explained the decision to primarily match up Porter against Higgins.
“Tee is a goon. He is. You can’t let him beat you up while at the same time the officials are going to call it the way they call it. Sometimes, I kind of absorb some of that, that comes with that. You cannot let a big dude like that beat you up. You gotta match the fire with the fire, you hope you do it clean enough that it doesn’t draw a bunch of penalties. We weren’t as successful in that regard today. We’ll keep working, but one thing we’re not gonna do is let that guy goon us,” Tomlin said via the team’s YouTube channel.
While Chase is having an absurd season, the Steelers have traditionally done a good job limiting him with Higgins posing a matchup problem. The Steelers decided to focus their efforts on the bigger receiver with their long, athletic No. 1 corner in Porter, and while it didn’t go as well as I’m sure the Steelers would’ve hoped, they walked out of Paycor Stadium with a win. For the most part, the team did a good job against Chase too. He had just five receptions for 36 yards until he picked up a big 50-yard reception late in the game in what seemed to be a coverage bust.
But Chase didn’t take over the game, nor did Higgins. Cincinnati’s offense is dangerous, and while Chase and Higgins led the way in the passing attack, the Steelers were able to do just enough to limit both of them and their offense hung 44 points to help keep pace with the Bengals’ potent offense.
There’s no doubt that Porter and Pittsburgh’s secondary overall could’ve done a better job, with Porter’s day especially rough given the penalties and a dropped interception in the end zone. But at the end of the day, a win is a win, and the decision to put Porter on Higgins worked out at least in the sense that Pittsburgh handled Chase for the large majority of the game.
