Steelers Joey Porter Jr. vows punishment won’t change him

CINCINNATI – Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. will likely spend the rest of next week looking over his shoulder every time he does something to make sure someone wearing stripes doesn’t get a little yellow flag thrown behind him.

Porter was tagged six times as the Steelers beat the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, four of which were accepted. Two of them got into the end zone, setting up the Bengals with first-and-goal from the 1-yard line. Cincinnati scored touchdowns in both games the following game, giving the Bengals easy touchdowns and allowing them to keep pace in the back-and-forth game.

“I’m angry about it. I try to be great at the end of the day,” Porter said. “These flags are somehow disturbing. But like Coach T always says, if he doesn’t trip and my team isn’t mad about it, I just have to keep playing and do my job. I feel like they’re trying to change my game at this point, but I’m not really worried about that.”

Porter was penalized heavily as a rookie in 2023 with eight accepted penalties against him. Entering 2024, this appeared to be an area of ​​growth, with only a single foul accepted in the first nine weeks.

But Porter was subbed three times in Week 10 against the Washington Commanders, again in Week 12 against the Cleveland Browns and then four more times against the Bengals.

Porter has now been assessed nine accepted penalties this season, the second-most of any defensive back in the NFL and the 11th-most overall. Only Detroit Lions rookie Terrion Arnold has more defensive penalties. Nine of the top 10 most penalized players are offensive linemen. Laremy Tunsil of the Houston Texans has the most with 15.

The Steelers had a clear game plan on Sunday. They wanted Porter to go 1-on-1 with Cincinnati wide receiver Tee Higgins and Donte Jackson to help with Ja’Marr Chase on the other side of the field. The Steelers did this knowing that Higgins can be a physical handful.

“You can’t let him beat you up while at the same time the officials are going to call it what they’re going to call it,” head coach Mike Tomlin said. “So sometimes I absorb some of what comes with it. You can’t let a big guy like that beat you up. You have to balance the fire with the fire. You hope you make it clean enough to not incur a lot of penalties. We didn’t manage to do that today. We will continue to work, but there is one thing we will definitely not allow:

Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. vs. the Cincinnati Bengals on December 1, 2024. – Ed Thompson / Steelers Now

The plan was for Porter to keep up with Higgins, figuratively and, if necessary, literally. So in a sense he’s not going to apologize for going out there and doing his job.

“I try not to let it affect my game,” he said. “Sometimes I show my emotions on the field because of course I’m a little angry about it, but I don’t switch gears or anything. I’ll just keep going.”

But he doesn’t want to gain a reputation as a skilled defensive player, and he feels that could happen. His tackle on Andrei Iosivas in the end zone was obvious, but the three later tackles on Higgins were more questionable.

“Some of these calls make me feel like I’m not doing anything the average DB does,” Porter said. “I have this goal in my sights and clearly have to keep working.”

RELATED: Mike Tomlin won’t overreact to Joey Porter Jr.’s 3-penalty play.