The Christian Gonzalez deal just changed the temperature around Joey Porter Jr. and the Steelers.
With Gonzalez landing a $135 million contract from the New England Patriots and becoming the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL, Pittsburgh now has a very obvious comparison sitting right in front of it. Porter and the Steelers have been working through contract talks all offseason, but the process has dragged.
There have even been long stretches without communication. Now, with the season drawing close, the sides are back at it in hopes of getting something done before Week 1.
Once the regular season starts, Pittsburgh won’t negotiate.
That leaves the Steelers in a spot where the pressure is building fast. Devon Witherspoon and Gonzalez have already reset the market with huge deals, and Porter has every reason to expect to be treated like the rest of his draft class. At the moment, though, Pittsburgh is the side that looks like it’s dragging its feet.
The deal does not need to be record-setting. Porter is two years older than Gonzalez, and both players have three regular-season interceptions in their careers.
That number alone shouldn’t push the price into absurd territory. Porter also isn’t viewed as a top-five corner the way Gonzalez is.
But he is borderline top-10, and after the progress he made last season, the case for paying him like a top-five player is right there.
A contract worth at least $30 million per year should be well within reach. With the top of the cornerback market now above $32 million annually, Porter should land somewhere around $30.1 million a year.
The guaranteed money won’t climb to $100 million like Witherspoon and Gonzalez, but a figure above the totals for Sauce Gardner and Trent McDuffie makes sense. $60 million total has felt like the right number.
What the Steelers should not do is keep sitting on a lowball offer. Porter is the first cornerback the team has developed since Ike Taylor, and letting that relationship drift toward the finish line would make little sense.
Sure, Pittsburgh could franchise tag him a year from now and save money in the long run. But that’s not how teams usually handle a player they truly want to keep around for the long haul.
The message is pretty clear now: the Steelers need to pay Porter what he’s worth and get this done. Gonzalez has set the number. Pittsburgh just has to write the check.
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