Could it be possible that Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. is being underrated?
It's hard to believe that could happen to the son of a former NFL star, but it certainly appears to be the case.
In 2023, Jets rookie cornerback Sauce Gardner allowed 46 completions on 86 targets for a completion percentage of 53.5 percent. According to Pro Football Reference, he allowed 452 yards, 1 touchdown and had two interceptions, allowing a passer rating of 62.7 to quarterbacks who targeted his coverage.
Gardner was the runaway winner of the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award.
Porter has allowed 18 completions on 36 pass attempts in his coverage, a completion percentage of 50 percent. He's given up one touchdown catch, 277 yards and has an interception for a passer rating of 73.5.
The biggest difference between their seasons is that Gardner wasn't asked to travel with the opposing team's receiver in 2022. In fact, he still doesn't do that.
Over the past month, Porter has traveled with Tennessee's DeAndre Hopkins, Cleveland's Amari Cooper and Cincinnati's Ja'Marr Chase all over the field in matchups against their teams.
In addition, he's also seen action one-on-one against the Rams' Puka Nacua, Davante Adams of the Raiders and Calvin Ridley of the Jaguars.
Yet when ESPN recently ran a story on its web site marking the top players in the game under the age of 24, Porter wasn't named as one of the cornerbacks on the two-deep depth chart. Gardner, the 2022 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, was on the first team along with Denver's Patrick Surtain III.
Seattle's Devon Witherspoon, like Porter, a rookie, was on the second team with Kansas City's Trent McDuffie.
Witherspoon has one interception, has allowed four touchdown passes and a completion percentage of 55.9 percent this season. His passer rating allowed is 83.7, which is good, but not when compared to what Porter has done.
McDuffie's passer rating allowed this season is 93.6. As a rookie last season, he allowed a passer rating of 86.5. He has yet to record an interception in his two-year career.
Surtain might be the best cornerback in the NFL, regardless of age. And, like Porter, he'll travel with the opponent's best receiver.
At this point, the only knock on Porter is that he's only "started" five games this season. But even before he was named a starter, Porter was seeing plenty of playing time in the Steelers' nickel and dime defenses. At this point in the season, Porter has played 58.2 percent of the Steelers' defensive snaps this season. After playing somewhat sparingly in the first month of the season, seeing just 58 defensive snaps in the team's first four games, he's been nearly impossible to get off the field.
With six games remaining, if Porter continues to play at his current level of play, if he's not in the conversation for Defensive Rookie of the Year honors, it would be a crime.
The entire 2023 rookie class looks like a really good one for the Steelers. Broderick Jones has been great at right tackle and Keeanu Benton looks like a star in the making at nose tackle. Darnell Washington and Nick Herbig have been solid contributors.
But Porter is doing very high-level stuff.
• Chris Boswell is 21 of 22 on field goal attempts this season, making 95.5 percent of his kicks. He's 4 of 5 on attempts from 50 yards and beyond, with his only miss being a well-documented 61-yarder at the end of the half after a 5-yard penalty pushed the Steelers back following Boswell making his previous attempt against the Jaguars.
He's having a great season, raising his career field goal percentage back up into the top-5 all-time at 87.109.
Interestingly enough, Baltimore's Justin Tucker, widely considered to be the best kicker of all-time, is having a down season. Tucker is just 21 of 26 this season. And with a missed field goal last week against the Chargers, Tucker fell off the top of the charts for career field goal percentage.
That honor now belongs to Atlanta's Younghoe Koo, who is 22 of 23 this season to raise his career average to 90 percent on the nose, just ahead of Tucker at 89.930 percent.
Of course, Koo does most of his kicking indoors and in great weather, something that neither Boswell or Tucker have the good fortune to do.
• The Steelers have allowed an average of just 15.0 points per game in their past seven outings, with just one team, the Jaguars, reaching 20 points against them.
That has led to their overall points allowed average, which was 25.0 points per game through the first four games of the season, to drop to 18.6 per game, with ranks fifth overall heading into Week 13.
If the Steelers continue to allow an average of 15 points per game over their final six games this season, they'll finish the season allowing 17.4 points per game.
That's pretty good. But it wouldn't even rank in the top-10 all-time for the Steelers.
The 1976 Steelers allowed just 9.9 points per game over their 14-game regular season.
• The Cardinals, the Steelers' opponent this week at Acrisure Stadium, haven't won in Pittsburgh since Oct. 5, 1969, when they beat the Steelers, 27-14.
That was Chuck Noll's first year with the Steelers and Joe Greene's rookie season.
Richard Nixon was in the first year of his first term as president of the United States and Apollo 11 had just landed on the moon a few months earlier. Diana Ross was still a member of The Supremes, who released their final single with her as a lead vocalist, "Someday We'll be Together," a few days after the Cardinals' victory.
It was a long, long time ago.
So long ago, in fact, the Steelers and Cardinals played twice that season, with the franchise, then located in St. Louis, defeating the Steelers 47-10, later in 1969 at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals and Steelers were both located in the Century Division in 1969 along with the Browns and Giants.
From 1950 through 1969, the Steelers and Cardinals were in the same division and played each other twice per season.
Now, because of NFL scheduling issues, this will only be the Cardinals' fourth game in Pittsburgh since that 1969 game. The nine other times the Steelers have played the Cardinals, it's happened on the road – and in one Super Bowl.
Still, since that Cardinals win in 1969, the Steelers hold a 3-0 record in Pittsburgh and 6-2 record on the road against them.
• The Steelers will welcome former running back James Conner back to Pittsburgh for the first time since he left in free agency at the end of the 2020 season.
•Dale Lolley is co-host of "SNR Drive" on Steelers Nation Radio. Subscribe to the podcast here: Apple Podcast | iHeart Podcast
Conner, a third-round draft pick by the Steelers in 2017 as part of a rookie class that included T.J. Watt, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Cameron Sutton, rushed for 2,302 yards with the Steelers in four seasons and has 2,060 in three seasons with the Cardinals, including a team-best 526 this season.
If Conner rushes for 100 yards against the Steelers, it would be significant. Not only have the Steelers allowed just 85.5 yards rushing per game since Cam Heyward returned in Week 9, only five former Steelers have ever returned to gain 100 yards against the team.
The most recent was LeGarrette Blount with the Patriots in 2016 when he gained 127 yards. Bam Morris had 100 yards for the Ravens against the Steelers in 1996.
Prior to that, you've got to go a long way back in history to find such occurrences. They belong to Washington's Leo Elter in 1955 (136 yards), the Giants' Frank Filchock in 1946 (108) and Detroit's Elmer Hackney in 1942 (108).
Conner, a Pitt product and native of Erie, was a fan favorite in his time with the Steelers. But here's betting a lot of fans at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday won't want him to become the sixth former Steelers player to reach 100 yards rushing against them.
