Kaboly: Steelers Haven’t Received Trade Offers, Have ‘Zero Interest’ In Dealing CB Joey Porter Jr.
NFL insider Jordan Schultz reported Thursday evening that Joey Porter Jr. is drawing trade interest from around the league amid a contentious contract negotiation.
According to Mark Kaboly of The Pat McAfee Show, that report is false—or, at the very least, it hasn’t resulted in a single call to Omar Khan and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“Did some snooping around and the Steelers haven’t gotten a single inquiry about trading Joey Porter Jr. and haven’t made any calls either, per multiple league sources. The Steelers have zero interest in trading Porter unless there is a crazy offer (2 first rounders or something like that). As for getting a deal done by Sept 13? [shrug emoji].”
Reports throughout the offseason suggest very little progress on a deal between Porter and the Steelers. P-G’s Gerry Dulac has repeatedly written that there haven’t been serious negotiations yet between the two sides. That’s often a sign of two sides being far apart.
With the Steelers having a hard deadline at the start of the regular season on all contract negotiations, there are just 22 days left for an extension to get done. That’s still plenty of time for talks to heat up, and deadlines tend to spur action, but they are definitely rounding into the eleventh hour.
Porter is technically on Active/PUP at the moment, but it’s largely speculated to be related to his ongoing contract negotiations as being on the list prevents any unwanted conversations with the media.
During Porter’s hold-in, the cornerback market has been reset twice by Denzel Ward and Devon Witherspoon. The top of the market has moved up, but perhaps not as much as some anticipated as other premium positions have exploded into the $40 million APY range. The top of the market started at $30 million this offseason, and three contracts later sits at $33 million.
According to Dulac, the Steelers do not view him as a top-five cornerback. Porter has made it clear in the past he views himself that way. That suggests Porter wants at least $30 million APY, while Pittsburgh’s valuation could be considerably lower.
The biggest wild card in the situation is the status of New England Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez. He is expected to reset the market again. If Porter’s camp is waiting on that deal to occur, it could make things difficult. The Patriots are willing to complete deals in-season while the Steelers are not. Keep in mind that the Steelers could simply wait until next offseason and apply the franchise tag to Porter at an expected value of $23,119,000.
We have officially reached the PR battle portion of the contract negotiations where each side may opt to apply pressure to the other via media headlines. Buckle up.
