Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. said Thursday that unfinished contract talks are behind him and that he expects to play this season, comments that cooled a week of rumors linking him to the Detroit Lions.
Porter has not suited up in 2026. He missed Pittsburgh’s first two games while working through a back injury and incomplete conditioning after spending much of training camp on the physically unable to perform list.
The 26-year-old is in the fourth and final year of his rookie deal and is due about $3.9 million in base salary. He entered the season hoping for a long-term extension that would put him near the top of the cornerback market.
Those talks did not close before Week 1. After practice Thursday, Porter treated the standoff as settled business.
“It didn’t get done. It didn’t happen. That’s really just old news for me now. It’s mainly just focusing on what I have ahead of me and getting back to 100 percent,” he said.
Asked if he would play this year, Porter said he “definitely” sees himself on the field. He also said he did not request a trade.
The timing matters in Detroit. The Lions already opened the season without starting safeties Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, both of whom remain on the physically unable to perform list and cannot return before Week 5.
The secondary then lost another piece when Avonte Maddox suffered a foot injury in Detroit’s 41-31 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sept. 17. Maddox is scheduled for season-ending surgery.
That leaves D.J. Reed as the Lions’ most established outside corner, with Rock Ya-Sin, Roger McCreary, Ennis Rakestraw Jr. and fifth-round rookie Keith Abney II filling the remaining snaps. Detroit released 2024 first-round pick Terrion Arnold earlier this year after he was charged in a criminal case.
Porter’s production is why his name kept surfacing. In 2025 he posted 52 tackles, 14 passes defended and one interception in 14 games. He has 31 passes defended and three interceptions in 47 career games since Pittsburgh drafted him 32nd overall in 2023.
Before Thursday, several reports listed Detroit as one of the most natural landing spots. The Lions created about $35.7 million in 2026 cap room by restructuring the contracts of wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and offensive tackle Penei Sewell and were reported to have roughly $38 million in available space, second in the league at the time.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport had named the Lions and Kansas City Chiefs as teams to watch. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler pointed to Detroit’s preference for man-coverage corners and the vacancy opposite Reed.
Jason La Canfora wrote that there was no easy or imminent fix because of Pittsburgh’s policy against negotiating extensions during the season.
“These aren’t your father’s Steelers, they aren’t wedding to old-school philosophies anymore and we get the strong suspicion that moving this talented player is reaching the ‘addition by subtraction’ stage of these types of standoffs,” La Canfora wrote.
CBS Sports analyst Bryan DeArdo had sketched a simple framework: Detroit’s 2027 first-round pick for Porter.
“Really, this trade should be as simple as the Lions trading a first-round pick to the Steelers for Porter,” DeArdo wrote. “Porter’s value to Detroit is greater than next year’s first-round pick. The Steelers can use that pick to draft another starting-caliber player. It’s a win-win for both teams.”
A valuation gap remains. Reporting from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Porter wanted an average annual salary north of $30 million, while Pittsburgh had discussed a 2026 figure slightly above $27 million.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said earlier this month that the new cap room created flexibility, including for players already on the roster, but he did not signal an imminent splash addition.
The trade deadline is still weeks away. For now, Porter is trying to get healthy in Pittsburgh, and Detroit is trying to hold together a secondary that has already lost three of its most experienced defensive backs.
