Joey Porter Jr.’s contract standoff is starting to look like the kind of Steelers headache that brings one name to mind fast: Le’Veon Bell.
Porter, 26, was activated off the PUP list at the roster cutdown deadline and got back on the field for a walkthrough on September 1, but he stayed mostly guarded when the conversation turned to his extension talks. Asked whether he would play in Week 1 if the two sides still haven’t reached a deal, he offered little in the way of a straight answer.
That caution makes sense. In this situation, the leverage doesn’t sit with Porter and his camp, so he has little reason to show his hand. If he ends up holding in once the season starts, Pittsburgh will immediately think back to Bell’s situation in 2018.
Porter knows that history better than most. He was around the team in 2018, when his father, franchise legend Joey Porter Sr., was the Steelers’ outside linebackers coach. Now the possibility exists that Porter Jr. could, in a very different way, echo Bell’s path.
The comparison only goes so far unless Porter actually chooses to miss games while waiting for a deal he likes. Bell’s saga was its own beast. He skipped all of training camp in 2017 during his holdout, then signed the franchise tag for $12.1 million less than a week before Pittsburgh opened the season against the Cleveland Browns.
The Steelers tagged Bell again in March 2018, but they never reached a long-term agreement with him before the mid-July deadline. Bell never reported that time, and plenty of his teammates were unhappy about it. He eventually moved on in free agency and signed a four-year, $52.5 million contract with the New York Jets, a deal he did not finish.
His career never quite found its footing after that. The Jets cut him during the 2020 season, and he later spent time with the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before never appearing in another game after 2021.
That’s why the Porter situation feels different, even if the contract tension is real. Sitting out regular season games would carry real risks for him. It could damage his value in future negotiations, and it would also hit his reputation and legacy after the goodwill he’s built so far.
At the same time, Porter has every reason to believe he earned a major payday after his breakout 2025 season. If the number he wants isn’t there, it’s understandable that he’d be hesitant to put his body on the line and invite an injury.
Still, the Steelers hold the stronger position. They can franchise tag him next offseason, and while losing their No. 1 corner would hurt them, Porter has more to lose if this drags into the season.
There are fewer than two weeks left before Pittsburgh’s Week 1 game against the Atlanta Falcons, and that matchup is the informal deadline for these talks before the season starts. After that, the possibility of a holdout becomes a lot more real.
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