The pairing of Joey Porter Jr. and Darius Slay has a chance to be a very good one for the Steelers in 2025.
An emerging young star, Porter has allowed a combined passer rating of just 77.4 when targeted by opposing quarterbacks in his first two seasons in the NFL.
Slay, signed in free agency this offseason, has been one of the top corners in the league over the course of his 12 seasons, earning Pro Bowl honors six times and first-team All-Pro once. Opposing quarterbacks haven't posted a passer rating of more than 83.9 when targeting him over any of the past four seasons, including an 81.9 rating in 2024.
Over the course of his 12 NFL seasons, Slay has excelled at not only following the opposing team's top wide receiver, something he did in both Detroit and Philadelphia, but getting his hands on the football. He has 28 career interceptions and 160 pass breakups.
Slay has recorded 13 or more pass breakups in nine of his 12 NFL seasons, including last season. He added five more pass breakups and an interception during the Eagles' postseason run to the Super Bowl last season.
Learning how to better play the ball in the air is something Porter can definitely learn from Slay, who has been one of the best in the league at it over the course of his career.
Porter had 10 pass breakups in 2024, but given his very good coverage skills, he can be even better in that regard.
"That's what my job is, to make plays on the football," Slay said earlier this week. "I've got great instincts and I'm a guy that's really competitive. As a cornerback, I'm always close to the guy I'm defending.
"I stay close and that gives me a chance to make a play on the ball."
His presence on the other side of Porter this season could allow Porter to take a big step forward.
"I think Joey's a great guy, a great player. I think it's really time for him to shine," Slay said. "I'm going to help him and make sure he's the best player he can be, give him all the tools that I've learned from the older guys that I have played with in the league. It's his time. I think I'm here to help him blossom. He's already a great player as it is. I'm here to keep him climbing to his ceiling."
Some viewed Porter's second season in the NFL as not as good as his first, largely because he had a few games in which he drew multiple penalties. That led to him having 12 accepted penalties against him last season, the most of any defensive back in the league.
But everything is relative. The more man coverage you play, the more likely you are to be penalized. New York's duo of D.J. Reed and Sauce Gardner, for example, were both penalized nine times each in 2024. Gardner missed two games, while Reed, who was signed to a three-year, $48-million free agent contract in the offseason by Detroit, missed three games.
They were considered one of the top cornerback duos in the league the last couple of seasons.
Porter has the size and skillset to be one of the league's top cornerbacks. What he has lacked in his first two seasons has been a player on the opposite side of him – Patrick Peterson in 2023 and Donte Jackson in 2024 – hasn't necessarily been capable of playing man coverage to his level. They were good corners, but Slay has shown he's still a capable man coverage corner.
The Eagles played man-to-man 25 percent of the time in 2024. The Steelers were at 36.7 percent in 2024, the seventh-highest rate in the league.
Nobody plays man all the time, but Slay is still dynamic enough to allow the Steelers to mix their coverages well. And as he mentioned, he can continue to teach the 24-year-old Porter the nuances of being a No. 1 cornerback in the NFL, something Slay has been over the course of his career.
• According to multiple reports, the vote at the Spring League Meeting to ban assisting the quarterback by shoving him from behind, the so-called "tush push," was extremely close to passing.
In the end, it fell two votes short of the 24 it needed to pass.
And here's the thing, team's weren't necessarily voting against the play because they couldn't stop it or they wanted to punish the Eagles for being so good at it.
The bottom line is that it's a boring play, pulled straight out of rugby. Worse, it's a boring non-football play.
That was never more apparent than in last season's NFC Championship when the Commanders continually jumped offside with the Eagles at the goal line, trying to get a player into the backfield before quarterback Jalen Hurts could be shoved from behind.
In that instance, on first-and-goal from the 1, the Eagles ran six consecutive tush pushes. One of them was stopped for no gain. Four were negated because the Commanders jumped offside – to the point where game officials threatened to award the Eagles a touchdown. Finally, on the sixth attempt, the Eagles scored.
In actual game time, it took 1 minute and 19 seconds. In real time, that part of the series took about 10 minutes.
On live TV in one of the biggest games of the year.
The NFL is an entertainment-based sports enterprise. There was nothing really entertaining about that particular series.
Given that 22 teams voted against the play, expect a modified proposal to be put forth in 2026 on which owner's can vote.
This isn't banning a play because it works really well. This is about taking a boring play out of the game.
The league has been about making things more exciting for a very long time. That's why defensive backs can no longer contact receivers all the way down the field, for example.
It's why the league adjusted its kickoff rules during the 2024 offseason in an attempt to bring kickoff returns back into the game.
• One proposal that did pass is to allow NFL players to compete in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in flag football, which will be making its debut in the international event that year.
That vote passed, 32-0, according to NFL.com.
Given the league's interest in flag football leagues across the country, particularly girls flag football programs, it only makes sense that the league allows its players to perhaps compete in the games.
What remains to be seen is how many players actually will want or try to give it a shot.
Six men's and six women's teams of 10 players will compete in the Olympics, which take place in July. It will be a five-on-five contest with no designated offensive or defensive lineman.
That kind of limits which NFL players will actually get a chance to compete.
The flag game is all about speed and shiftiness.
One of the most interesting rules is that quarterbacks will not be permitted to run the ball. They'll have to throw it or hand it off.
One defensive player also can blitz the quarterback, though he has to start at least seven yards off the line of scrimmage and cannot be blocked.
So, while your quarterback must be mobile, his mobility might not be the determining factor since he can't actually run with the ball.
• There was some talk at the league meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., earlier this year about the creation of an award for offensive linemen.
At the most recent meetings, the league announced that will be the case moving forward.
The award will be called "The Protector of the Year," and will be voted on by a panel that includes a number of former NFL linemen.
While it's great to honor offensive linemen, who are often unnoticed unless they're making a mistake, giving out just one award to a position that includes more players than any other in the league – most teams carry nine to 10 offensive linemen on their 53-man roster – still might not be enough.
Is it always going to go to a left tackle? If so, should there be a separate award for interior offensive linemen?
• Dale Lolley is co-host of "SNR Drive" on Steelers Nation Radio. Subscribe to the podcast here: Apple Podcast | iHeart Podcast Pittonline@iheartmedia.com
• On-field OTA sessions begin next Tuesday for the Steelers. They'll include six practice sessions that will lead into the team's three-day mandatory minicamp June 10-12.
No live contact is permitted during the sessions, but teams can compete in 7-on-7, 9-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills.
The Steelers, along with a number of other teams across the league, have scaled back their OTA sessions this season. They're permitted to have as many as 10 on-field practices.
But this year, about half the league has gone to a lower total.
OTA sessions have taken place for more than 20 years, but they weren't formalized in the CBA until the 2011 CBA.
And, unlike minicamp and training camp, attendance at them is voluntary. And the on-field portion of the OTAs is just a fraction of the process. Teams have actually been holding OTA sessions for weeks now, but they largely consist of strength and conditioning training, some of which players choose to do on their own.
Troy Polamalu, for example, over the course of his career, largely chose to skip OTA sessions and do his own training for the season. It was more noteworthy when Polamalu did attend an OTA session than when he did not.
