Wilson Simons Blog Posts

Did the Steelers just send Joey Porter Jr. to the one place he still won't get paid? Credit to @byjoeybray By Wilson Simons     On paper, the Cowboys trading for Joey Porter Jr. makes sense. Dallas is 1-2, its secondary has been wrecked by injuries, and Jerry Jones has never met a splash he didn't like. A 26-year-old press corner fixes a real problem.      Then you look at the contract, and the whole thing gets weird.      An hour or so after the trade, Jordan Schultz reported that the Cowboys won't be immediately extending Porter. The plan, per Schultz, is to let him play and let the contract take care of itself. Porter came to Dallas because Pittsburgh wouldn't pay him. He's now on a team that also isn't paying him.      Credit to @byjoeybray for the theory I can't stop thinking about: maybe that was the point.      The Steelers knew exactly where Dallas stood financially, because they've dealt with this front o...

Joey Porter Jr. is a Dallas Cowboy, and of course he is By: Wilson Simons Update: The Steelers received a 2028 1st round pick, not 2027 like I assumed, My thoughts on that will be below this initial article.      The Steelers have traded Joey Porter Jr. to the Dallas Cowboys. Tom Pelissero reported late Wednesday that the two teams were finalizing the deal, and Ari Meirov reported that Pittsburgh's return is a package that includes a second-round pick. The rest of the package hasn't been reported yet, so I'm reserving a little bit of hope that "and more" means something real.      If you've been following this saga, the destination isn't a surprise. It's practically tradition. George Pickens went to Dallas. Broderick Jones went to Dallas. Mike McCarthy came from Dallas. The Khan-Jones pipeline is the busiest trade route in the NFL, and it only runs one way: Pittsburgh's talent heads south, and Pittsburgh fans head to therapy.      Porter neve...

Steelers try to snap a 76-year streak on Thursday night in Cleveland By: Wilson Simons      The Pittsburgh Steelers have not won a road divisional game on a Thursday night since 1950. They get another crack at it this week, against the team that has made that streak its personal hobby.      Pittsburgh (2-1) visits the Cleveland Browns (2-1) at 8:15 p.m. ET Thursday at Huntington Bank Field, with first place in the AFC North on the line. Every team in the division is 2-1. The Steelers hold the tiebreaker for now as the only one with a division win.      History says the Browns hold everything else. Pittsburgh is 0-9 in road Thursday games against divisional opponents in the Super Bowl era, and 0-4 on Thursday nights in Cleveland. The Browns are 6-1 at home against the Steelers since 2019, including Thursday wins in 2022 and 2024, and 9-1 at home on Thursday nights overall. They'll wear their all-brown alternates, which won't help the aesthetic...

Is Joey Porter Jr. getting ready to play, or getting ready to be traded?       Byline: Wilson Simons      For the first time this season, Joey Porter Jr. is practicing like a player who is about to take the field. The question now is which field.      The Steelers listed Porter as a full participant on Monday's injury report ahead of Thursday night's game at Cleveland, the first time he has been listed as more than limited this year. Porter is still on the report for conditioning as he works back from a back injury that has kept him out of Pittsburgh's first three games.      There are two ways to read that. The optimistic version is that Porter is finally ready and makes his season debut against the Browns. The other version is that Pittsburgh is showing the rest of the league its most valuable trade chip is healthy.      The timing makes the second reading hard to ignore.      Trade chatter ...

       PITTSBURGH — Joe Burrow completed his first 13 passes Sunday and finished with a 123.9 passer rating. The Cincinnati Bengals lost anyway.      Derrick Harmon knocked the ball loose from Burrow with under a minute to play and Sebastian Joseph-Day fell on it, ending a 30-27 Pittsburgh win at Acrisure Stadium that pushed the Steelers to 2-1 and into first place in the AFC North. Cincinnati fell to 2-1.      A week after managing 235 yards in a 20-3 loss at New England, the Steelers gained 411. Aaron Rodgers threw three touchdown passes, Jaylen Warren ran for 127 yards and Chris Boswell made all three field goal attempts, including the 33-yarder with 2:15 left that decided it.      The difference started up front. Brock Hoffman and rookie first-round pick Max Ihanachor started on the right side of a reshuffled line, and Rodgers was not sacked in the first half after going down four times in Foxborough. He finished 19 of...

       For years the fear around the AFC North was what happens when Joe Burrow finally gets a defense? We're finding out. In Week 1, Cincinnati sacked Baker Mayfield four times and forced four fumbles in a 33-27 win over Tampa Bay. Demetrius Knight Jr. returned one for a touchdown, and that single score matched the Bengals' total number of defensive touchdowns from all of 2025. Week 2 was even scarier. A Houston team that put up 31 on Buffalo the week before managed two field goals, 60 rushing yards and a 5-of-17 day on third down. It's the first time Cincinnati hasn't allowed a touchdown since 2022.      The centerpiece is Dexter Lawrence. His first big moment in stripes came against Houston: on fourth-and-inches from the Bengals' 18, he blew through the line and dropped David Montgomery for a loss, killing a red-zone trip. Cincinnati pressured C.J. Stroud on 43.5% of his dropbacks, with five different players, Lawrence included, logging at least fou...

Byline: Wilson Simons      The Pittsburgh Steelers are 1-1 with  one touchdown on 21 possessions, and already the timeline has settled on its favorite reply. “Bet you miss Tomlin now.”      No, we don’t, and that reply misunderstands what Steelers fans were actually asking for back in January when the “fire Tomlin” chants were ringing throughout Acrisure Stadium.      Mike McCarthy through only two games has been bad. He shuffled an offensive line that where shuffling it was the worst thing he could’ve done. Moved Troy Fautanu off a right tackle spot he played well in last season,  and has now admitted the experiment was a mistake.       To be fair to McCarthy, he didn’t have much of a choice when the Steelers selected Max Ihanachor in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. A player who has only played right tackle his entire career. Even then, Ihanachor was only picked because the Steelers actual selection, w...

     FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Pittsburgh Steelers' leading receiver Sunday was Germie Bernard, a rookie who had played three offensive snaps in his career. He finished with 35 yards.      That was the high-water mark in a 20-3 loss to the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, one in which Pittsburgh had more first downs than New England, held the ball seven minutes longer, and never reached the end zone. The Patriots, who did not throw a touchdown pass, evened their record at 1-1. So did the Steelers.      Aaron Rodgers finished 23 of 40 for 187 yards with no touchdowns, an interception and a 59.1 passer rating. He was sacked four times for 43 yards, leaving Pittsburgh with 144 net passing yards and 235 yards of total offense. The Steelers punted seven times.      The play that ended it came 14 seconds into the fourth quarter. Christian Barmore came free off the edge, knocked the ball from Rodgers' hands at the Pittsburgh 19...

  Byline: Wilson Simons      FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Pittsburgh Steelers will play their first road game of 2026 without their No. 1 cornerback, without their leading receiver from Week 1, and with a rookie who has played three offensive snaps in his career penciled into a starting role.      Kickoff against the New England Patriots is set for 1 p.m. Sunday at Gillette Stadium.      Joey Porter Jr. was ruled out Friday with a back injury, the second straight week he will not play. His week was an adventure. Wednesday's report listed him as limited for conditioning alone and dropped the back injury entirely. Thursday, after coach Mike McCarthy said the plan was for Porter to do more than he had the day before, the cornerback left practice with a trainer roughly 30 minutes in and did not return. The back designation was back on the report that night. Asante Samuel Jr. will start in his place, with rookie Daylen Everette expected to see...

       Joey Porter Jr. took part in one loose-ball drill Thursday. Then he walked off the field with a Pittsburgh Steelers trainer and did not come back.      That sequence, reported by ESPN's Brooke Pryor and Steelers Now's Alan Saunders during the window of practice open to media, came hours after head coach Mike McCarthy told reporters the plan for the day was for Porter to increase his workload from Wednesday. The Post-Gazette's Ray Fittipaldo later saw the cornerback leave the team facility. He was not in the locker room when reporters spoke with players afterward.      The paperwork tells its own story. Wednesday's injury report scrubbed Porter's back injury entirely and listed him as limited for conditioning reasons alone. Thursday's report put the back designation back on, with Porter again limited alongside tackle Troy Fautanu. Receiver Michael Pittman Jr., Cam Heyward and Darnell Washington did not practice.     ...

By Wilson Simons     Aaron Rodgers did everything right. Late in the third quarter against Atlanta, facing third-and-3, he slid in the pocket and threaded a ball into a window that barely existed. DK Metcalf had nobody behind him. If he catches it, he's still running.      He didn't catch it. The ball went through his hands, the Steelers went three-and-out, and a game that should have been comfortable stayed a grind until T.J. Watt bailed everyone out with one of the most incredible pick-sixes you'll ever see that looked impressive even for TJ.      Pittsburgh won 20-13. Nobody should feel great about how.      Metcalf finished with four catches on 10 targets for 40 yards. A bad day for any receiver but a disaster for one making roughly $33 million a year. Games like this aren't uncommon for Metcalf either.       To understand why this matters, we must go back to March 2025. The Steelers sent a second-round ...

     PITTSBURGH — For much of Sunday afternoon, the Steelers’ offense looked uncomfortably familiar. The defense made sure it didn’t matter.      T.J. Watt turned a one-score game on its head in the fourth quarter, intercepting Cooper Rush at the line of scrimmage and returning it for a touchdown to help Pittsburgh escape with a 20-13 win over Atlanta.      Watt finished with two sacks, three tackles for loss and the pick-six, while linebacker Payton Wilson led Pittsburgh with 13 tackles and two tackles for loss. Alex Highsmith added two sacks as the Steelers held Atlanta to 238 total yards and forced two interceptions.      The performance covered for an offense that struggled to consistently move the ball. Aaron Rodgers completed 24 of 40 passes for 221 yards and one touchdown, but Pittsburgh finished with just 264 total yards and converted three of 13 third downs.      Atlanta struck first after Jaylen Warren ...