Steelers open the second round with Joey Porter Jr.

Pittsburgh opted for the Penn State cornerback, son of a former linebacker in the organization

Joey Porter Jr.son of the former linebacker of the NFL, Joey Porterbecame this Friday a new player of the Pittsburgh Steelersupon being selected with turn No. 1 of the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft.

As a prospect, Porter made a name for himself as a top cornerback for Penn State over the past three seasons. The first thing you notice about Porter is his length. At 6-foot-3, and 193 pounds, he possesses 34-inch arms and a wingspan of nearly 81 inches.

“He looks like he was created in a lab to play football,” is how one area scout described it to the NFL draft analyst for ESPNMatt Miller, in the weeks leading up to the draft.

An NFC college scouting director remarked to Miller, “He’s so long, but he moves really well in terms of quickness in the short box and change of direction. He’s pretty weird for his size.”

Porter is the biggest of the most notable cornerbacks for the first round, and a favorite among pro teams who prefer man-to-man coverage schemes. He displays frontline instincts, speed, toughness and physical play, holding opponents to 3.7 yards per attempt thrown his way last season, tying the fourth-best mark in the FBS.

Porter had no interceptions in 2022, but he did break up 11 passes and force an incompletion on 37.9 percent of the throws directed at him, the best rate in the nation.

“If I had to pick one because of the way we play, it would be Porter,” a scout for an NFL team in the Northeast told Miller ahead of the draft. “He doesn’t have a lot of interceptions, but he plays the ball very aggressively.”

Porter’s father was a linebacker and assistant linebackers coach for the Steelers.

Now, Porter will have a chance to display all that aggressiveness as part of the Steelers’ secondary defense, who lost cornerback in free agency. Cameron Sutton. In Pittsburgh, he will make a group with names like Ahkello Witherspoon, Levi Wallace, Arthur Maulet and the newly signed Patrick Petersonamong others.

Miller considered Porter the third-best cornerback available this year in the 2023 NFL Draftjust behind Devon Witherspoon from Illinois y Christian Gonzalez of Oregon.

Porter was part of the contingent of prospects invited to the Draft 2023 in Kansas City, but not being chosen in the first round, he left the event for the second round. The wait to meet his NFL team didn’t last long.

In the first round, the Steelers selected offensive tackle Georgia, Broderick Jones.

Information from Matt Miller was used in the writing of this article.