Joey Porter Sr. played for the Steelers for eight years, and later coached for five more under HC Mike Tomlin. Now that he is just a Steelers fan and dad to Joey Porter Jr., he is resisting temptation. Offered the opportunity to stand on the sidelines for one game, he recalled turning it down for one particular reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe funny thing about it was, I\u2019m in the stands, because I told [Mike Tomlin], Mike is good, \u2018Man, you want to come?\u2019 I\u2019m like, Nah, man, until they give me a suite, I\u2019ve got to sit in the stands,\u201d Porter recalled on the Not Just Football podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI ain\u2019t trying to use my Steeler power of being on the sideline, because it\u2019s giving mixed emotions. I know how much I really do want to coach,\u201d Porter admitted. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to sit down here to look like I\u2019m trying to ask for my job back, knowing I would take it back. But you don\u2019t want to come off like that, and I want him to be a man and do his thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The particular game he was discussing was Week 5 of the 2023 season. That was his son Joey Porter Jr.\u2019s first game in a larger role in the Steelers\u2019 defense. Porter recorded his first interception, jumping in front of Odell Beckham Jr. in the end zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n While he wasn\u2019t on the sidelines, Joey Porter Sr. was waiting for the ball in the stands. He said he sat in the stands at Penn State and didn\u2019t want it to be any different with the Steelers. But at 48 years old, it sure sounds like he still has the coaching bug.<\/p>\n That\u2019s hardly surprising, considering Mike Tomlin is 53, so age isn\u2019t really the issue. Porter Sr. is focusing on being a dad first, though, along with his work with the Jasmine Nyree Day Center<\/a>, named after his daughter, catering to children with special needs.<\/p>\n Would he ever take another coaching job again, though? And would he coach anywhere but with the Steelers? He said he would take his job back, but that\u2019s one particular job, in one particular town. Pittsburgh and the Steelers organization mean a lot to Porter and his family, perhaps now more than ever.<\/p>\n In the same interview, Joey Porter Jr. talked about his wishes for his son. The first thing he mentioned was his hope that he would \u201cstay here,\u201d with the Steelers and win championships. He may have left as a player, but like so many others before him, he found his way back.<\/p>\n Porter and Tomlin both raised sons together in the area schools\u2014including Joey Porter Jr., of course. He first earned a defensive assistant post with Colorado State, where he worked with Shaquille Barrett. The following year, in 2014, Tomlin hired him to join the Steelers\u2019 staff.<\/p>\n After Tomlin promoted Keith Butler to defensive coordinator, Porter took over the outside linebackers coach job. He held that position for four years, overseeing the early days of T.J. Watt\u2019s career. But the Steelers let him go after the 2018 season. While he served on Hines Ward\u2019s coaching staff in the XFL<\/a> in 2023, it wasn\u2019t quite the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joey Porter Sr. played for the Steelers for eight years, and later coached for five more under HC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,33851,33852,57,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-147988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-joey-porter-sr","10":"tag-not-just-football","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114722573391857883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}