Ja’Marr Chase is the gold standard of NFL wide receivers as the latest winner of the rare triple crown, leading the league in receiving yards, receptions, and touchdowns in 2024. That means he is used to getting plenty of attention from opposing defenses and should have a pretty good read on who some of the best cornerbacks are in the league. He was recently asked for his top five cornerbacks in the NFL and three Pittsburgh Steelers made the cut.
He immediately named Cleveland Browns CB Denzel Ward as the top guy but proceeded to list three Steelers to round out his abbreviated list of four.
“Joey Porter [Jr. is] pretty smooth. He’s just long,” Chase said via The Sitdown w/ Malik Wright on YouTube. “It’s gonna be fun going against [Jalen] Ramsey and Darius Slay. I had an opportunity to go against [Slay] this last year and [Ramsey] my rookie year. That’s four. I’m gonna go with four.”
Porter and Chase have now played each other three times, but the Steelers opted to stick Cory Trice Jr. on Chase for the most recent matchup in the final week of the 2024 season. But their very first matchup in Porter’s rookie season was a fantastic outing for him. Next Gen Stats had Porter only allowing two receptions for 36 yards while shadowing Chase on 85.7 percent of his routes.
We will see how the Steelers opt to handle Chase and Tee Higgins moving forward, but we should get to see plenty of Porter-Chase matchups in the future assuming both stay with their respective teams for years to come.
Slay and Ramsey have been two of the best corners in the league for almost a decade. It’s no surprise to see them appear on this list, even if they are in the latter years of their careers.
When Chase played Slay and the Eagles in 2024, he caught nine of his 11 targets, but for only 54 yards and a touchdown. Pro Football Focus had Slay down for allowing three receptions on six targets for 53 yards in that game, though they weren’t exclusively lined up against each other.
Chase’s matchup against Ramsey came in the Super Bowl of the 2021 season. Chase caught five of his eight targets for 89 yards and no touchdowns. Ramsey was marked down for allowing five receptions on nine targets for 160 yards and a touchdown in the Rams’ championship victory. He didn’t shadow Chase the whole game but did match up against him frequently.
An NFL Live graphic from before the Steelers’ recent trade showed Slay and Ramsey as two of the best corners in the league since 2016. Now they are both in Pittsburgh.
The Steelers haven’t had this much star power at cornerback in a very long time, and it will be fascinating to see how they play matchups against top receivers like Chase in 2025.
