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Joey Porter Jr.’s time with the Steelers has officially come to an end.
Amid failed negotiations on a contract extension, Pittsburgh traded the cornerback to the Cowboys on Wednesday night in exchange for a 2027 sixth-round pick and a ’28 second-round pick.
Porter, the son of longtime Steelers linebacker Joey Porter Sr., was selected by Pittsburgh out of Penn State with the 32nd pick (second round) of the 2023 draft. He started 41 games over a three-year span and tallied 165 total tackles, 31 passes defensed and three interceptions.
Throughout this past offseason, Porter saw fellow 2023 draft mates Devon Witherspoon and Christian Gonzalez sign lucrative contract extensions—and naturally wanted to get his. As such, the 26-year-old sat out of Steelers training camp with what was described as a back injury, spending the summer on the physically unable to perform list before being activated ahead of the regular season. Porter still has yet to suit up in 2026.
According to ESPN, the main sticking point in the negotiations between Porter and Pittsburgh was guaranteed money. The two sides “never made meaningful progress on agreeing to terms,” and rather than mend the fence, the Steelers decided to trade Porter to the Cowboys ahead of Week 4.
Dallas now adds the cornerback for at least the remainder of the 2026 season, but won’t yet sign him to a long-term deal. As reported by WFAA’s Ed Werder, Porter is fine playing without an extension because “the Cowboys are the team he most wanted to play for in leaving the Steelers.”
With that, let’s grade the trade.
Steelers
It’s too bad the Steelers weren’t able to get a deal done with Porter. Not only is he the son of a franchise great and Super Bowl champion, but he’s a really solid player. According to Next Gen Stats, he allowed just a 66.0 passer rating when targeted last season, didn’t allow a touchdown and logged a -0.07 EPA per target.
Without Porter in the cornerback room, Pittsburgh is now left with Asante Samuel Jr., Jamel Dean and Daylen Everette on the outside and Jalen Ramsey and Brandin Echols at nickel. The latter two are both dealing with injuries ahead of Thursday night’s game against Cleveland.
While the Steelers have ultimately allowed just 192.7 passing yards per game over the first three weeks of the season without Porter, this is still an unfortunate development. They had a young, homegrown talent in-house to build their defensive backfield around, and instead traded him for draft picks—the best of which doesn’t come until 2028.
Grade: D
Cowboys
Ever since sending Micah Parsons to the Packers in the summer of 2025, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys have gone big-game hunting on the defensive side of the ball. Over the past 14 months, Dallas has acquired defensive tackles Kenny Clark (in the Parsons trade) and Quinnen Williams, linebackers Rashan Gary and Dee Winters, and also selected safety Caleb Downs out of Ohio State with the No. 11 pick in the 2026 draft.
Now Porter enters the mix.
Joining a defensive backfield already manned by Downs, DaRon Bland, Cobie Durant, Malik Hooker and Jalen Thompson, Porter will only bolster a Cowboys secondary that’s allowing a respectable 207.3 passing yards per game. That number, though, doesn’t tell the full story of Dallas’s defense so far, as the Cowboys have allowed the NFL’s third-highest passer rating (121.3) and the eighth-most points per game (27.3), and have managed to sack opposing quarterbacks just twice—the third-fewest in the league. Adding Porter’s coverage in the back end should, in theory, help the Cowboys get home.
The Cowboys won this deal. They’re only sending a late-round pick in 2027 and a second-rounder in ’28 for a player that has proved to be one of the better cornerbacks in the game. Additionally, if they don’t plan to extend him and he signs elsewhere next offseason, then the Cowboys could land themselves a quality compensatory pick in 2028.
Grade: B-
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MIKE KADLICK
Mike Kadlick is a senior NFL news writer for Sports Illustrated. He’s also a New England Patriots reporter for CLNS Media, where he hosts the Patriots Daily podcast and covers the beat from Gillette Stadium. Before joining SI, Kadlick worked at WEEI sports radio in Boston. He holds a master’s degree in public relations from Boston University. When Kadlick’s not covering football, he can be found running, spending time with his wife and dog, and enjoying all things pizza.
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