Why Joey Porter Jr. Only Played 7 Snaps vs. 49ers

PITTSBURGH — Seven snaps. That’s how many snaps Steelers rookie cornerback Joey Porter Jr. had on Sunday in his debut. After coaches talked him up and how he would play a lot, that came as a surprise, with Patrick Peterson and Levi Wallace absorbing most of the snaps.

However, Mike Tomlin noted that Porter should have played more, but the way the 49ers played did not lend itself to that. Pittsburgh stayed in base most of the time because the 49ers ran so much out of 21 personnel with two running backs, specifically with Kyle Juszczyk at fullback. Then, the 49ers stayed ahead of the sticks by running the football the entire game.

“They did such a really good job of staying on schedule that it was probably less than we anticipated,” Tomlin said. “And oftentimes you guys are asking about division of labor, the amount of exposure of talent and so forth, we have intentions and an agenda and sometimes game circumstances change those agendas. And that’s why I described the game the way I’ve described it. The 49ers were able to play to their agenda and their plans, and we were not. Obviously, we had intentions of playing Joey more than that, but you better have them behind the chains and off schedule a little bit more than we had them off schedule. If not, then you’ll play seven snaps of dime because you don’t play dime on third down and two, you know what I mean.”

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In other words, the 49ers never got into obvious passing situations where the Steelers could bring Joey Porter Jr. on the field. Instead, they played in either base or their three-safety nickel package. As a result, Porter ended up on the outside looking in for most of his snaps. If Pittsburgh’s defense can get into the right situations, slow down a guy like Nick Chubb, and force the Browns into more 11 personnel, it seems likely that the Steelers will get Porter more snaps.

That amount of snaps will never be high as long as he does not start. But it should end up being more than just seven snaps. Sometimes, the struggles in one area of the defense reverberate to other parts of the defense, and Porter seems to have ended up a causality of that fact on Sunday. If Pittsburgh can stay on schedule defensively, expect to see more of Porter on Monday night.