Darius Slay Looks Forward to Taking Joey Porter Jr. Under His Wing: ‘Man, He’s a Great Corner’
Newly acquired Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Darius Slay hopes to give Joey Porter Jr. the same wisdom that he passed down to Philadelphia Eagles rookie cornerbacks Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell last season during their Super Bowl title run.
Slay believes the sky’s the limit for the third-year cornerback out of Penn State.
“Joey Porter Jr.’s got a lot of upside, man. I’ve been watching him from afar, and I’ve been telling him all this time, man, he’s got some of the best press technique I seen in the league at a young age,” Slay said of Porter on his Big Play Slay podcast. “Man, he’s a great corner. Long, fast, physical, look like a willing tackler for sure. So it could be a great opportunity to go work with him.”
Porter was the most penalized cornerback in the NFL in 2024, drawing 17 penalties. Porter was called for six penalties, four of which were accepted, in the team’s 44-38 win against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 13. Bengals star wide receiver Tee Higgins gave Porter fits throughout the afternoon.
Porter finished the 2024 season with 70 total tackles and an interception while allowing 53 receptions for 653 yards on 79 targets in coverage, according to Pro Football Focus. It definitely wasn’t a banner season for Porter after finishing fifth in the Associated Press Defensive Rookie of the Year voting last season.
The Steelers brought Darius Slay in as a free-agent acquisition to upgrade their secondary. The six-time Pro Bowl cornerback hopes his impact with the team is much more far-reaching. During his introductory Steelers press conference on March 13, Slay talked about how he plans to mentor the team’s younger covermen, a group that includes Joey Porter Jr., Beanie Bishop, and Cory Trice.
“It’s gonna be great, man, I love that,” Slay said during his introductory press conference with the Steelers “That’s the best part of my job. I love meeting new people. You know, some people don’t like meeting new folks. … I’m very outgoing, and that’s one of the biggest roles I would like to take, just helping mentoring younger guys because a guy did that for me. So, I always gotta return the favor in my way, and that’s how I do it.
“And I do it with genuine love, not by force. It’s because I want them to be great. I want them to always be better than me. Any guy I ever had under me, my job is try to make sure they’ll be better than me, as a player, person, everything.”
Slay, a 13th-year professional, said that he’d always heard good things about the Steelers from Patrick Peterson, who spent 2023 with the team. Additionally, Joe Haden was one of Slay’s favorite cornerbacks when Slay was younger, and Rod Woodson had taken Slay under his wing early in his career.
“When I got drafted, I stayed at his house for about a month and a half, learned football from him,” Slay said of Woodson, widely regarded as the Steelers’ most talented cornerback ever. “We had the same agent, Eugene Parker. … He introduced me to him, and that’s how he kind of drawed me to sign with him, too. He had a lot of guys I looked up to in his game. He had Deion (Sanders), Rod, and a couple of other guys I used to look up to.”
Brenden Howe contributed reporting for this story.