{"id":858713,"date":"2026-04-07T10:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/858713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:53:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:53:18","slug":"new-steelers-dc-patrick-graham-will-make-everything-work-how-its-supposed-to-joey-porter-jr-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/858713\/","title":{"rendered":"New Steelers DC Patrick Graham Will ‘Make Everything Work How It’s Supposed To’, Joey Porter Jr. Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick Graham is just the second defensive coordinator Joey Porter Jr. has had in the NFL, but he already trusts him. The Steelers begin Phase One of the offseason program today, which will be the first formal opportunity to meet. Attendance is voluntary, and we don\u2019t know if he plans to attend or not, but the process begins now. And Graham is ready to get to work with what he sees as an abundance of resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Steelers had to find a new coaching staff, of course, after Mike Tomlin resigned after last season ended. Mike McCarthy replaced him, hiring Patrick Graham to run the defense. Now Joey Porter is going into a pivotal contract year, hopeful of a new extension before then. And hopeful that Graham will know how to make him look good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the DC we got, I think he\u2019s gonna make everything work how it\u2019s supposed to. He got the pieces, he\u2019s gonna but the puzzle together. I got faith in him for that, for sure\u201d, Porter said of Patrick Graham on The Blueprint podcast<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

Through his first three seasons, the Steelers had Teryl Austin, nominally, as their defensive coordinator, with Mike Tomlin\u2019s heavy hand in there as well. Porter talked about the schooling Tomlin gave him about coaching trees and branches. He mentioned the coordinators he had at Penn State and how they set the table for what he\u2019s become. They \u201cbelieved in us to go lock anybody down\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my specialty. Just give me a task and Imma take care of it. He just trusted us to do that, so it was just up from there\u201d, Porter said, though he didn\u2019t say anything about whether Graham has the same plans for him. \u201cOnce I transitioned to the league, obviously, the Steelers is like a zone\/man-type defense, especially with TA [Teryl Austin] coming into the mix. He\u2019s a little more zone-heavy. But he\u2019s seen what I was able to do and wanted to lean towards that a little bit\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Steelers selected Joey Porter at the top pf the second round in 2023. While he wasn\u2019t an instant starter, he slowly worked it way into the mix and became their top cornerback. He doesn\u2019t have the interceptions he\u2019d like, but he knows they\u2019re coming<\/a>. Given that Austin helped boost the Steelers\u2019 interceptions during his tenure, I\u2019m not sure what Patrick Graham is supposed to do for that, though.<\/p>\n

Patrick Graham comes to the Steelers from the Raiders with a reputation of making the most out of his resources. While he had Maxx Crosby, who is no slouch, the general impression is that he managed to do more with less.<\/p>\n

Joey Porter would certainly not qualify as less, nor really any of Patrick Graham\u2019s new secondary. On paper, they would seem to have a lot to work with, including additions of Jamel Dean and Jaquan Brisker<\/a> this offseason, on the signings of whom he presumably had some input or influence.<\/p>\n

Last season, in 14 games, Porter recorded 52 tackles, 1 sack, 1 interception, and a career-high 14 passes defensed. He also cut down on his penalties<\/a> and generally had his best season to date. But he knows there\u2019s another level to untap, not just in him but with the Steelers. He believe Pittsburgh has the right man for the job in Patrick Graham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Graham is just the second defensive coordinator Joey Porter Jr. has had in the NFL, but he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,7582,6,14269,520,57,2360,426,117052,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-858713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-joey-porter-jr","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-patrick-graham","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-steelers","16":"tag-the-blueprint","17":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116363055079437980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858713","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=858713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}