Talking to the media the day after the Steelers’ season-opening win over the Atlanta Falcons, Pittsburgh head coach Mike McCarthy still faced a number of questions regarding a player who didn’t even suit up on Sunday.
Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. was the lone rostered Steelers player to be ruled out in Week 1, with a back injury designation. Porter missed much of the summer on the Physically Unable to Perform list with that reported injury, but he was also in the process of wanting an extension from
the team.
Porter made a point of not ruling out sitting out of games if he didn’t receive a contract by Week 1 — and the Steelers famously don’t negotiate in season — leading to questions regarding if his absence against the Falcons was truly injury-related at all.
However, McCarthy took responsibility for the decision to rule out Porter to open the season.
“It was my decision — I’m in charge of the 48 (active players on game day),” the Steelers’ head coach said Monday. “You have a week of training. We spoke a couple of times last week. My concern for Joey, obviously, is to get him to a spot no different than everybody else in training camp.”
McCarthy said Porter is still ramping up physically after missing so much time over the summer. “If players who go through that first ramp-up period that aren’t ready to go, they don’t participate fully in the padded practice — I don’t really see this any different from that,” he said of Porter.
McCarthy still acknowledged the contract angle of the situation. “Now, it is different that there’s a business component to this, and that’s really a whole other topic,” he said. “But as far as Joey’s participation in practice, he’s communicating with the trainer every day, he’s communicating with the strength and conditioning coach, and also his position coach, Jason (Simmons), and Joe (Whitt Jr.) and (defensive coordinator Patrick Graham). We’ll get him out there when he’s ready to go through a full practice.”
McCarthy said he didn’t have a medical update on the star corner.
“I haven’t met with the trainers or the training staff yet today,” he said. “I don’t even have the full report of the work in that area yet, but hopefully we’ll have a good plan for him for Wednesday, hopefully we’ll do more.”
According to Next Gen Stats, the Steelers played exclusively zone coverage when facing the Falcons’ drop-back passing game. Porter is known as a press-man specialist at cornerback, and McCarthy was asked how that situation could affect the cornerback.
“Great question, that I’m not gonna answer,” replied McCarthy. He added that Porter has looked good in recent practices. “(Porter) did a couple of one-on-one drills in Thursday’s practice — first time I saw him up close. I was impressed.”
McCarthy said, “Yeah, I’d expect him to play,” when asked if Porter would take the field when his ramp-up is over, although the head coach didn’t answer whether that period would be weeks or days.
McCarthy described Porter’s business situation as an “individual” one. When asked again if the situation could become a distraction, he said he was done answering questions on the topic: “This is the most I’ve, frankly, ever talked about a business situation. So I think I’ll stop right here.”
