Joey Porter Jr.'s Steelers contract standoff traces back to a 1993 rule

Why pick No. 32 came with no fifth-year option

In most drafts, the 32nd pick is the last one of the first round. The 2023 draft was different. In August 2022 the NFL stripped the Miami Dolphins of their 2023 first-round pick after finding tampering violations involving Tom Brady and Sean Payton. The first round therefore had only 31 selections, which is why ESPN's fifth-year option tracker for that class ends at No. 31. Porter went 32nd, and on paper that made him the first pick of the second round.

That technicality is doing real work now. First-round rookie contracts carry a club option for a fifth season. New England, for example, picked up cornerback Christian Gonzalez's $18.1 million option for 2027, per ESPN. Porter's deal has no such option, so it simply ends after this season, and Over The Cap lists him as an unrestricted free agent in 2027. One slot earlier and Pittsburgh would have held the right to keep him through 2027, and this whole month would feel far less urgent. In my view that is the quiet, decisive fact under all the noise.

The 1993 rule behind the word impasse

On August 24, 2026, head coach Mike McCarthy put a name on the standoff. "So we're at an impasse right here, and you've got to respect that," he told reporters, as quoted by ESPN. He added: "Every one of us has a contract." McCarthy and his defensive staff are in their first season in Pittsburgh, a point he raised himself.

The policy he was describing is far older than the staff. Writing for Steelers.com, longtime team editor Bob Labriola has traced the no-negotiating-in-season rule to Dan Rooney and the 1993 season. Defensive end Donald Evans grew openly unhappy about his contract as that year went on, and the team slid from 6-3 to out of the division race. Tight end Adrian Cooper caught nine passes with no touchdowns, which Labriola described as "a period when the only noise he made was complaining about his contract." Neither player was on the 1994 team, and the ban on in-season talks began.

Porter and the club did not reach a deal before the team-imposed Week 1 deadline, USA Today reported, so formal talks are shelved until the season ends. I find the origin story oddly calming. The rule was not written with Porter in mind. It was written because of two contract disputes 33 years ago, and the club has kept it ever since.

The back, the conditioning and the calendar

The contract is only half of why Porter has been missing. ESPN reported that he aggravated his back during a mobility workout on the first day of training camp, which put him on the physically unable to perform list. The Steelers took him off that list on August 30 so he could be part of their initial 53-man roster, according to NFL.com. The rules behind that move are a story of their own, and our companion piece on the PUP list walks through them.

By Week 3 his listed limitation was conditioning rather than the back. "My back will have its moments where it flares up here and there, and we're still trying to get my conditioning down to me just being out there as much as possible," Porter said, as quoted by CBS Sports. On the money, he sounded settled: "It didn't get done. It didn't happen. That's really just old news for me now." We could not find any credible report putting a date on his return, and I would be wary of any page that claims one.

The case each side can make

Porter's case is straightforward. He has an interception in each of his three seasons, and the 49.1 passer rating allowed in 2025 was the only sub-50 figure among qualifying corners, per CBS Sports. In June he said he has been "the lead guy" since entering the league, according to ESPN. His teammates are not subtle about it. "I'm overly in Joey's corner," Jalen Ramsey said in August. Linebacker Patrick Queen, who has his own big contract, said, "he's been a baller and I just hope he gets paid."

The club's public case is shorter: McCarthy's line that "the organization, they have beliefs." My read, and it is only a read, is that a back that still flares and three inactive Sundays make a long, guaranteed deal harder to price than a spectacular 2025 alone would suggest. Both things can be true at once. That is usually what an impasse is.

Three roads out of the standoff

• Play out 2026 and talk after the season. The policy only freezes talks during the season. If no deal follows, Porter reaches unrestricted free agency when the 2027 league year opens on March 11, 2027, at 4 p.m. Eastern.
• The franchise tag. Each team may tag one player who is about to become an unrestricted free agent. For 2026 the non-exclusive cornerback tag was $21.161 million; the 2027 figure has not been set. A player on the non-exclusive tag can sign an offer sheet elsewhere, and his team may match it or take two first-round picks, per NFL Football Operations.
• A trade by the deadline. The 2026 trade deadline is November 10 at 4 p.m. Eastern. Schefter reported that Pittsburgh would listen but "would want a strong compensation package." In late August, ESPN's source said no trade calls had been made or received, so the market has clearly warmed.

If you are trying to guess which road it will be, I would skip the rumor mill and watch the weekly injury report. A healthy Porter covering receivers in October changes the price for every team involved, including his own.

The hoodie on draft night

On April 28, 2023, the night Pittsburgh drafted him, Porter walked into the team facility wearing one of his father's old Steelers hoodies, from Joey Porter Sr.'s years as an assistant coach. According to Steelers.com, it carried a patch on the sleeve honoring the late chairman Dan Rooney. That is the same Dan Rooney who wrote the in-season rule now governing his son's contract. However this ends, I like that the kid wore the rule-maker's name on his sleeve before any of it started.