NFL Insider Jason La Canfora: Week 2 Diary – Joey Porter Jr. Trade Looms

Is a Joey Porter Jr. Trade Coming Sooner Than Expected? Someone should call the Pittsburgh Steelers about disgruntled corner Joey Porter Jr. Soon. No need to wait until the trade deadline. Now’s fine. We do not get the sense that there is an easy or imminent solution to Porter’s impasse. The Steelers have a team policy of not negotiating extensions in-season and nothing we hear leads us to believe there is an easy solution here and plenty of contending teams look short at least a corner. These aren’t your father’s Steelers, they aren’t wedding to old-school philosophies anymore and we get the strong suspicion that moving this talented player is reaching the “addition by subtraction” stage of these types of standoffs. I believe he will be gone. And perhaps quite a bit sooner than the midseason deadline. This is becoming a distraction for the team, Pittsburgh would almost certainly be ready to engage if inquiring minds wanted to explore this and I don’t think tampering would be an issue (you want permission to speak to his agent to try to arrange a contract first, just ask!) Porter has developed well for them and they respect what he’s done, but there is a clear disconnect between what he believes he is worth and what the team is willing to do to secure him. The fact that his father was as a star player for the Steelers perhaps complicates things a bit and makes it feel a little more personal, and the best thing for all involved would be for a third party to step in and assess what the defensive back is worth and solve this riddle for them. Of course, how much a team is willing to give up for Porter in draft capital – on top of the financial compensation, remains to be seen. We’d be surprised if the Steelers were holding out for boffo compensation. The Steelers selected Porter in the second round three years ago; getting back a Day Two pick, maybe with a little upside, feels about right. Porter has shown he can do the job on bad fields and in the muck and in the elements in the AFC North. Seems to me, and some personnel execs I spoke to about this situation, that he would be a great fit in the NFC North. Detroit’s defense is in failure mode and dealing with serious injuries on the back end. Chicago’s defense is so suspect it threatens to undermine what might be the most dynamic offense in franchise history. That would be a good place to start. There’s a deal waiting to be made. Bengals’ Defensive Hype Might Be Real Three NFL teams generated a fair amount of steam coming into the season about being perhaps significantly better than their recent varieties: the Cowboys, the Chargers and the Bengals. Through two weeks, one of them is delivering and doing it in a precise manner where the positive change was expected – the Bengals defense has bitten. After hunting the football and stifling Baker Mayfield in a Week 1 win they harassed CJ Stroud Sunday to close out the game and completely eliminated any threat of the Texans picking up yards on the ground and their offseason blockbuster trade for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence looks pretty sage right now. Remember, the Bengals are the only team in the AFC North not overhauling their coaching staff and this was a team plagued by the slowest of starts with superstar quarterback Joe Burrow, even in their Super Bowl run. But Lawrence’s presence has transformed their defensive front and while tough challenges are ahead, don’t be fooled by Stoud’s gaudy passing numbers, he was also forced to throw 55 times in what was largely a close game – that game script won’t work for Bengals’ opponents. Texans running backs carried 14 times for 18 yards. Yeah, you read that right. They had a long of four yards. Now, tight end Dalton Shultz catching 12 of 14 targets is a problem, especially on a day the Texans were short at receiver, but they held Stroud to 6.6 yards per attempt and Mayfield couldn’t do much downfield against them either and with an offense as explosive as their threats to be, merely curtailing the big plays will go a long way. “Look, Burrow hasn’t heated up yet and we know he’s a slow starter,” one longtime NFL personnel exec noted to me. “They have a chance to build a little cushion here.” Indeed, the Bengals face the Steelers, Jaguars and lowly Dolphins before an early bye, while Baltimore must go to Brazil to face Dallas this week with an injury-depleted roster and Aaron Rodgers already looks pretty cooked for Pittsburgh. The hype might be real here. Around the NFL: Browns Survive, Panthers Explode, Packers Struggle The Cleveland Browns had 59 total yards in the first half Sunday at Tampa, on an impossible 2.4 yards per play, and came back to win that game. With Deshaun Watson at QB. That’s surreal. (It’s also not sustainable and Watson stays starter for now but that’s week to week). Did it require an act of God – two-hour storm delay – yeah it did. But their head coach, Todd Monken, is a football lifer who tells it like it is and he should’ve been hired by the Jets long ago when they swung and missed on Adam Gase (owner Woody Johnson didn’t listen to his football people, go figure). No one was facing more drama and noise heading to Week 2. Helluva job by Monken to use that delay to flip the game … NFL coaches are hunting explosive plays more than ever as defenses embrace putting a shell over the top more than ever to take them away. So how about Bryce Young – who continues to develop quite nicely – and the Panthers leading the NFL with 9 plays of 25+ yards through two weeks? Long way from him, barely throwing the ball across the line of scrimmage. Of the teams to play at least twice, only the Seahawks and Jets have yet to give up a play of 25 yards or more. Keep an eye on this – because NFL coaches are – only the Chiefs (8-1), Saints (7-1), and Bills (8-4) have an Explosive Play Differential above +3 thus far. It’s highly correlated to winning … The Green Bay Packers better make some adjustments to their play calling with running back Josh Jacobs on the Commissioner’s Exempt list as serious legal charges against him play out. The Packers are currently third-worst in the NFL in time of possession and if they keep sending this defense on the field 35 minutes a game without superstar Micah Parsons for half a season, then this might end up being it for embattled head coach Matt LaFleur. The Packers head to Week 3 dead last in the NFL in total rushing EPA (-15.5) and with tight end Tucker Kraft coming back from major injury and this team seemingly always losing receivers to injury (very scary moment for Jayden Reed on Sunday), the time is now for corrective measures. “Losing Jacobs is definitely part of it, but they should look better than this on offense,” one advance scout mentioned to me. “The run game has no juice.” Green Bay is running the ball on first down 55% of the time, slightly above the NFL average, but getting 3.2/carry (NFL average is 4.3, a huge chasm), stressing the offense and not bringing out the best in LaFleur. The post NFL Insider Jason La Canfora: Week 2 Diary – Joey Porter Jr. Trade Looms appeared first on Casino.org.