{"id":669059,"date":"2026-01-11T15:15:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/669059\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T15:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:15:16","slug":"bully-ball-steelers-secondary-ready-for-the-matchup-against-texans-nico-collins-joey-porter-jr-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/669059\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bully Ball’: Steelers’ Secondary ‘Ready For The Matchup’ Against Texans’ Nico Collins, Joey Porter Jr. Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Steelers have faced some big-name wide receivers this year, but Nico Collins will be a challenge for the secondary. CB Joey Porter Jr. believes his unit is up for the challenge, even while hinting that it\u2019s not his alone<\/a>. Making the Pro Bowl for the second straight year, Collins is the Texans\u2019 primary receiving threat by a wide margin.<\/p>\n

At 6-4, 222 pounds, Collins will give the Steelers\u2019 secondary a rare challenge. They have had some practice, however, against Ja\u2019Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. This year, they also faced Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Zay Flowers, Justin Jefferson, and others. In terms of physical attributes, though, they don\u2019t really stack up.<\/p>\n

The Steelers, in fact, have one of the rare wide receivers who is in a similar mold to Nico Collins. They have DK Metcalf, who himself is 6-4, 229. Pittsburgh\u2019s secondary has worked against him all season\u2014except for the past two weeks, so it won\u2019t be a complete shock to the system to go against that body type.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty much, you see his game on tape. The big and strong, physical wide receiver\u201d, Joey Porter Jr. said on Steelers Nation Radio<\/a> about Nico Collins. \u201cHe plays bully ball. He\u2019s a guy that they use heavily in that offense, so he will get a lot of targets. The secondary, we\u2019re ready for the matchup. We\u2019re always looking for a good matchup, and this is one of those ones where the game\u2019s gonna be on us, and we get to show out\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tee Higgins is the wide receiver most similar to Collins in body type, and he has found success against Porter and the Steelers\u2019 secondary. He caught a touchdown in both games against Pittsburgh this year, and in one game, he went for 96 yards. They allowed Smith-Njigba to catch 8 for 103, Chase 16-161-1, Jefferson 10-126, etc. But they also held Chase to 3 catches for 30 yards in their other matchup. St. Brown caught 4 passes for 54 yards.<\/p>\n

The Steelers don\u2019t have to shut Nico Collins down, though; the secondary just has to stop him from taking over. He will make his plays\u2014he has 50-plus yards in all but two games this year. But as long as they control the matchup, they can manage the game.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, they have to hope, perhaps, that DK Metcalf can have success on the other side. The Texans have a better secondary than the Steelers, and Collins had a better season than Metcalf. There\u2019s a reason that Houston is favored in this game<\/a>, but they don\u2019t play the games on paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steelers have faced some big-name wide receivers this year, but Nico Collins will be a challenge for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,2368,7582,6,533,57,97353,222,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-669059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-texans","11":"tag-houstontexans","12":"tag-joey-porter-jr","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-nico-collins","15":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","16":"tag-steelers-nation-radio","17":"tag-texans","18":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115877126169601721","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669059","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=669059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}