Joey Porter compiled 60 sacks from 1999-2006 playing for Pittsburgh. That’s third on the Steelers’ all-time sack list. Porter helped Pittsburgh win a lot of games with his intensive, aggressive style. Porter still is helping the Steelers win games. He should get a game ball for baiting Pac-Man Jones into committing a personal foul that helped enable the Steelers to pull out a victory against Cincinnati this past Saturday on a late field goal.
Porter, the Steelers outside linebackers coach, took it upon himself to disobey the rules when he went on the field to check on Antonio Brown after Vontaze Burfict laid Brown out with an illegal head shot. Porter did more than check on Brown’s condition as according to several Bengals Porter started trash-talking Burfict and other Cincinnati players. I believe them knowing Porter’s reputation and the way he played. When Jones took offense and went after Porter, the referee flagged him moving the ball easily into field goal range.
This is what Jones was quoted as telling NFL media columnist Michael Silver: “He (Porter) ain’t supposed to be on the (expletive) field!” Jones said. “He was talking all kinds of (expletive), yelling at (Burfict), saying, ‘You a dirty son of a bitch … Take your bitch ass out of here …’ So I turned to him and said, ‘Why are you talking?’ I didn’t even touch him. And they threw a flag.
“How can they throw a flag on you for talking (expletive) to a coach? Especially to a (expletive) who ain’t supposed to be on the field? It’d be different if I was gonna approach a (expletive) player. There’s a big (expletive) difference. I mean, Mike Tomlin wasn’t even on the field. Why the (expletive) is Joey Porter on the field, period?”
Jones in his own inelegant language is right. The official’s may have been right to penalize Jones, but they should have also penalized Porter – even tossing him out for instigating a dispute that he no right to be a part of since it was happening on the field. Offsetting penalties would have prevented the Steelers from getting such an easy field goal try at that late juncture in the game. Perhaps the game result might have been different.
There may be more ramifications still to come from this game, including stricter monitoring of coaches coming on the field.
