Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. should've been starting from day 1: Film Breakdown
In this film breakdown, we take a look at Pittsburgh Steelers rookie CB Joey Porter Jr., the 1st pick of the 2nd round in the 2023 NFL Draft.
So far this season, Joey Porter Jr. has looked as good as advertised, despite playing a limited number of snaps. However, every time he is out there, he is locked on to his receiver, allowing almost no separation. In week 5, he replaced Patrick Peterson toward the end of the Ravens game, and ended the game by picking off Lamar Jackson, while covering Odell Beckham Jr. in the endzone. By all indications, he should be the starter moving forward. In this video, we analyze what he's put on tape so far, and what to expect from him in a full time role.
Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. Film Breakdown
Disclaimer: The following is a transcript of a YouTube video titled “Steelers CB Joey Porter Jr. Should've Been Starting from Day 1: Film Breakdown” The content is for informational purposes only and was originally presented in video format.
The Steelers took Joey Porter Jr. with the first pick of the second round last year, and he's gotten off to a slow start in terms of playing time, but when he's been on the field, he looks exactly as advertised. He's only played 86 snaps through the first 5 weeks. Normally that wouldn't be enough for me to do an entire video on, but there's been enough action in that small sample size of film to break down.
The 4 weeks he played about 15 snaps per game, usually on passing downs when the Steelers went into dime. And I usually try to give coaches the benefit of the doubt when it comes to rookie playing time because they're watching these players in practice every week, I'm not. In most cases, maybe excluding Matt Canada, coaches aren't acting against their own self interest. They're trying to win games, and if a player that's drafted highly takes a while to get put in the lineup, that's probably happening for a reason.
But watching the Steelers defense and seeing Levi Wallace and Patrick Peterson especially just getting torched in man coverage and then seeing Joey Porter come in for 10 snaps and stick to every receiver's hit for the entire play. I was getting kind of frustrated that they wouldn't just make him a starter. But week 5 they finally put him in to replace Patrick Peterson and he finishes the game by locking down Odell Beckham on this goal line fade and getting the interception.
So, all indications are that he's going to be the starter going forward and in this video we're going to break down what he's put on film so far and what to expect from him in a full time role. Joey Porter Jr. is at his best playing press man coverage. He has the longest arms of any active cornerback in the NFL at 34 inches. And that's important because normally playing aggressive press coverage, whether it's with one or two hands, is extremely risky.
Because normally when you extend your hands out to land that two hand punch, you're going to be leaning forward and over committing with your weight displacement. And if the receiver's able to shake you at the line of skirmish, it's a lot more difficult to get your hips turned around and recovered downfield. But Joey Porter has the reach to land his punch and disrupt the receiver's release and stay patient with his footwork. So even when he misses with his upper body, his lower body's in a good position to recover.
And it allows you to play press coverage without the risk that normally comes with that of getting beat over the top. We're gonna start out with the last play of the Ravens game, they're running a goal line fade to Odell Beckham, I'm not exactly sure what Odell Beckham is at this point in his career, but I don't think he's going to be the jump ball winner against six foot two corners. So, I really don't like this play call in terms of the route they've got him running and I don't like goal line fades out of shotgun, but Joey Porter plays this with pretty much perfect technique, he does a good job being patient with his footwork at first.
He doesn't overextend early in the rep and allow an easy inside release. Once Beckham declares the outside release, he establishes contact. He doesn't grab, he's just using that contact to stay over the top of the route. And then he gets his eyes up to find the ball and comes down with the interception.A lot of tall press corners like Joey Porter Jr. are kind of stiff when it comes to lateral movement skills. But I've been really impressed with his ability to cover a lot of ground with his lateral shuffle steps and stick with horizontal inside releases.
You can see right here, Amari Cooper squares up to start his release and then he explodes inside. Joey Porter kind of drop steps with his inside foot, but then he's able to plant and accelerate off the outside foot and mirror the release. And then he establishes contact, gets in phase, stays on his hip all the way down the field. Right here he's covering Donovan Peoples-Jones on a fade route. Even if there is some stuff you could tighten up with the footwork, I like how there aren't any egregious false steps when he's in press coverage. A lot of times with younger corners especially any jab step or fake release is going to get their hips turned around.
But Joey Porter has the perfect blend of aggressiveness with his hands and patience with his footwork. Once the receiver declares his release outside, he lands a punch on the inside shoulder, stays on top of the route as they work downfield. And then at the exact moment he turns around to look for the football, Joey Porter gets his head turned around. The ball isn't catchable, but if it was, he'd be in great position to make a play on it.
In week three, he had about five or six true one on one press man reps against Davante Adams, which is about the most difficult assignment you could have for a rookie corner. Right here, Adams uses this outside skip release that he uses all the time. He slow plays it at first, comes to balance, puts his weight on his inside leg, and then explodes to the outside. But again, Joey Porter does a great job being patient here. He doesn't overextend or take any false steps that Davante Adams could take advantage of.
As he transitions out of his release, Joey Porter lands a strong inside hand punch. And then he does a good job sinking his hips at the top of the route, mirroring this break inside. On this play Adam starts his release inside so Porter lands an outside hand strike this opposite hand punch strategy where you're punching away from the receiver's release allows you to recover a lot more easily if they do change direction… You can see he starts inside, Porter strikes with the outside hand and then when Adams releases outside, he's already in phase to stick with that transition.
On this play, he's lined up on Zay Flowers, and Porter has such an advantage in terms of size and wingspan, but flowers is obviously at a quickness advantage. So what Joey Porter needs to do from his standpoint is just not bite on anything early in the rep. You can see all these moves and steps that Flower's taking in the first couple seconds. Porter doesn't react to that at all, there's no false steps, he's not getting out of position. And then you get a second and a half, two seconds into the play, Flowers hasn't made any progress, so he basically just has to run straight through him.
And Joey Porter can pretty much just block him for the first four or five yards and then stay on top without grabbing. And then similar dynamic here going on with Odell Beckham, all Joey Porter has to do here is just not lose early in the rep. He takes a half step with the outside foot to stay on top if he does release outside. But he isn't overextending or getting off balance. He has that slide quickness to mirror inside releases. And then he's physical within the five yards. It's third and six.
So he doesn't have to worry that much about long developing passing concepts. And he's done all the work early in the rep, so he basically just has to run with him downfield. He did get beat on this play against Davante Adams. It looks like he's worried about a switch release here. You can see these two receivers are stacked pretty much right on top of each other. So he doesn't establish any contact and his feet aren't moving at all. Davante Adams is able to release cleanly inside and then he's not in phase so he isn't able to stick with him at the route break.
So press coverage, I think everyone expected Joey Porter to be good at in the NFL. His combination of length, foot quickness at his size, and ability to turn his hips and accelerate downfield, I think is going to make him one of the better press corners in the league in a few years. But my biggest area of concern with Joey Porter is start stop ability. Now when he's in off coverage, or playing in a side turn in cover 3, he can actually accelerate from a standstill or a backpedal pretty effectively. Right here the Steelers are in cover 3, Elijah Moore is running a deep out which should be pretty effective against this coverage because you've got Joey Porter with his back turned to the sideline away from the receiver's break.
But Porter does a great job keying Deshaun Watson here. You never know exactly what defensive backs are being told to read when they're looking at the quarterback. I know every coach does it differently. So when Watson takes this front hand off of the ball, that means he's about to throw it and Porter needs to break on the route .And you can see the hip fluidity. The acceleration at his size is really impressive.
Watson could do a better job here of getting this ball placement a little bit more outside but this is a great rep from Joey Porter. And again, the arm length comes in handy to give him more reach at the catch point. So his acceleration I don't really worry about. What does concern me is his ability to sink his hips and stick with curls and comebacks. There are a lot of times, and I saw this on this college tape also where he'd be at the top of a curl route and instead of being able to just sink his hips and mirror the break, he'd have to grab at the jersey to slow himself down and prevent that separation.
He is a lot more effective when he's in phase means established contact or he's in like trail technique or he can kind of feel out the break. But I could see him picking up some holding penalties in these situations. So it was really confusing to me why Joey Porter wasn't made a starter sooner than this I think there will be some growing pains, but I definitely expect him to be an upgrade to Patrick Peterson, and I'm excited to see what he can do in a full time role.
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