Will the Steelers pay Joey Porter Jr. and should they keep four QB's?

But the other big story of the week, obviously, is where things stand right now.

With Joey Porter Jr.'s contract extension situation, saga, whatever you want to call it, it feels like to me this week things are kind of coming to an inflection point and things have become a little more heated, a little more tense than they've been over the last couple weeks.

Yeah, I mean, I think when we started this whole process, everyone was thinking, all right, well, they're going to go through the song and dance.

Both sides are going to kind of posture in a certain way, but they'll come to a conclusion.

Now I'm starting to wonder if that's going to happen.

Yeah, I think that there were some... tense moments I go back to using that word tense because earlier this week when we talked with Mike McCarthy he was you know we're asking him questions pre-practice and Jalen Ramsey comes off the pup list a big development there this they're no doubt excited to have him back and And McCarthy was asked, you know, obviously with Ramsey getting back into the fold, Joey Porter Jr. still remains on PUP.

Is there anything that you're going to need to see from him in the preseason before you feel comfortable if he can get out there week one, playing week one, and kind of unprompted almost we got some insight from mike mccarthy where he basically said we're kind of at an impasse here and i think that opened up a lot of eyes especially i was almost surprised to hear him say that in that type of setting he did acknowledge you know of course this is the business side of things you have to respect that everybody in the organization has contracts but i think that's the first time we've really i mean this first time mccarthy has really spoken in Those words about what's happening right now between the organization and their cornerback.

Well, first of all, it's interesting because he's on pup list.

But it's almost like McCarthy said the quiet part out loud here.

Now, today he tried to say, oh, he still has a back injury.

But I bet his back would feel a whole lot better with a $30 million per year contract.

That would make my back feel perfectly fine.

That's true.

But I think he was... saying very clearly that they are at a difficult part in these negotiations.

And I think that the toughest part with all of this is that the cornerback market has risen so rapidly so recently.

And the Steelers, they have Joey Porter under contract for this year.

And they can also franchise him for two more years.

So they have a tremendous amount of leverage in all of this.

And I know a lot of people have said, well, why did they get Nick Herbig done first? Why didn't they go after Joey? And I think the franchise tag has a lot to do with it.

Franchising a linebacker, according to Over the Cap, would cost the Steelers $30 million in 2027.

Well, they signed Nick Herbig to less than that, $25 million.

Franchising a cornerback costs just over $23 million next year, or at least that's the current projection.

And the top of the market guys are making more than $30 million per year.

So that's where I think that the market, because it's only recently that corners have started to reset it.

And when you factor in the franchise tag, it's over the last five years.