{"id":1052543,"date":"2026-09-09T07:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T07:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1052543\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T07:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T07:31:18","slug":"garafolo-steelers-made-initial-offer-to-joey-porter-jr-not-good-enough-to-be-deemed-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1052543\/","title":{"rendered":"Garafolo: Steelers Made Initial Offer To Joey Porter Jr., ‘Not Good Enough’ To Be Deemed Close"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers are approaching their deadline to sign Joey Porter Jr. to a contract extension before negotiations cease at the beginning of the regular season. Until now, they hadn\u2019t even put a formal offer on his agent\u2019s desk. According to NFL Network\u2019s Mike Garafolo, that has now changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have said that there hasn\u2019t been an offer made. Update: there had been an offer made,\u201d Garafolo said via NFL Network\u2019s The Insiders<\/a>. \u201cI am told via sources that the Steelers have made an offer. It is not good enough for this one to be deemed close, but the Steelers are showing a willingness to engage, which means we\u2019ve got a couple days for both sides to figure out what are the right numbers to get a deal done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of work to be done, from my understanding. I would not call it imminent. I would not call it close, but I will call it an actual negotiation now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only has the regular-season deadline accelerated the process, but New England Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez\u2019s extension<\/a> early Tuesday morning cleared up one of the last major unknowns in the negotiation process.<\/p>\n

Porter has no leverage without the possibility of Gonzalez resetting the market significantly higher than Devon Witherspoon did last month. If the Steelers made an offer Porter doesn\u2019t like, they may be back to square one with the \u201cimpasse\u201d head coach Mike McCarthy mentioned two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler called it the most complicated contract situation in the NFL<\/a> right now. He clarified that Porter isn\u2019t asking to reset the market, but wants to be \u201cadjacent\u201d to that conversation. The top six cornerbacks are all making at least $30 million APY now, with the most recent deals offering large guarantees. Porter could see both as sticking points.<\/p>\n

Formal contract offers require paperwork, time, and effort. Former NFL GM Doug Whaley explained on The Fan this morning that it isn\u2019t unusual for teams to hold formal offers until the last moment when they\u2019re certain on the terms.<\/p>\n

If so, the Steelers might wait to make their best offer, giving Porter little wiggle room to negotiate.<\/p>\n

He lacks leverage other than threatening a holdout. Even doing that would lose money in the process via fines and game checks and would stand to gain nothing. The Steelers won\u2019t budge on their in-season negotiations rule.<\/p>\n

His last lever to pull, if it comes down to it, is a public trade request. If the Steelers aren\u2019t willing to grant him one, a holdout would have at least some leverage.<\/p>\n

On a positive note, Joey Porter Jr. and the Steelers are at least negotiating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers are approaching their deadline to sign Joey Porter Jr. to a contract extension before negotiations…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1052544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[39],"tags":[1653,78263,1232,59920,62,114263,939,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1052543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-joey-porter-jr","tag-mike-garafolo","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-network","tag-sports","tag-the-insiders","tag-trending","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117239918515990685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1052544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}