No Porter, no playoffs for Steelers
When the Steelers began training camp there was one player who stood out as a key to their defense’s success for the 2026 season.
Pittsburgh ranked near the bottom of most passing defense categories last year but the hope was a new coaching staff could put together more effective schemes and better players around their best cornerback, Joey Porter Jr., when it came to the secondary.
In fact, with Porter, the Steelers’ cornerback position was rated near the top in the NFL by many. The thought here was they were an above-average group at the least.
Porter was arguably the most important player on the Steelers’ defense in 2026. Losing their top edge rusher (T.J. Watt), or lineman (Cam Heyward) or inside linebacker (Patrick Queen) or safety (Jaquan Brisker) wouldn’t impact Pittsburgh as much as playing without Porter.
Yet, now he’s gone.
And so are the Steelers’ playoff hopes.
Losing Porter, who was traded to the Cowboys for a 2027 sixth round pick and a 2028 second round pick, wrecks Pittsburgh’s season. There is a huge hole in the middle of the cornerback position group that cannot be compensated for with the players currently on the team.
The only hope now is that Pittsburgh GM Omar Kahn pulls off some trade to bring in another impact corner.
Even if he tries to do just that, do you trust him to bring in the right guy for the right price? Do you trust his evaluation of what’s available out there? Is there anyone he could snag who would make up for the absence of Porter?
Very doubtful.
But Pittsburgh better try to make some move to address the cornerback room at least to show their fans they care about winning.
In today’s NFL, when you remove a team’s best cornerback, the ripple effect is more like a tidal wave. Porter wasn’t one of the top five corners in the league, as perhaps he thought, but he was top 10 and extremely important to the potential success of the 2026 Steelers.
Head coach Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham thought they were trying to patch the secondary together until its best player returned. Instead, they’re stuck with the group that was torched by the Browns’ Deshaun Watson in yet another losing trip to Cleveland (one win in their last eight games there).
You can argue all the reasons why, who was right, who was wrong, who gave Porter bad advice, why the Steelers didn’t seem to make him a priority to sign to a multi-year deal, etc.
None of that matters as far as the Steelers’ chances for making the NFL playoffs in 2026.
The bottom line is, Pittsburgh was better — much better — with Porter on the field.
You can say next man up and all that, but the reality is the Steelers were a borderline playoff team if they could have gotten Porter back in their lineup and now the 2026 team will be known as the one that snapped their NFL-record streak of non-losing seasons at 22.
At least they’ll have a top-18 draft pick in 2027.
Rob Burchianti is sports editor of the Herald-Standard and can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com