PITTSBURGH — Joey Porter didn’t say much this week, but he was on top of his game the previous week when he spoke with Miami reporters for half an hour. He must’ve raised the eyebrow of Homeland Security with this beauty about the Dolphins’ signing of Ricky Williams:
“I don’t care who you got,” said Porter. “If you’ve got Bin Laden, if you could run the ball like Ricky did, I mean, right now I’d do anything for a victory right now.”
Yes, the Dolphins are still winless, and yes they signed Ricky Williams, and yes Joey Porter will still be the lead story Monday night when the 7-2 Steelers host Porter’s 0-10 Dolphins.
Porter spent eight years in black and gold before he was released this spring with a year left on his contract. He’s sixth on the Steelers’ all-time sacks list and sparked the team to a 2005 championship with his play down the stretch.
He’s remembered here for that as much as his smack talk before and during games. The Steelers say they’re expecting both the talk and the energetic level of play he used to provide for the Steelers when he was here.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, he’ll be a 10 and a half,” said his former sidekick up front, Brett Keisel.
“Joey’s going to want to come in here and win. Joey hates to lose. They haven’t sat on that side this whole year yet, so he’s going to come in here with everything he’s got. I’m sure he’s going to give them all our secrets and things like that. He’ll be ready to go.”
Does Keisel expect Porter to call players out before the game?
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure he’s going to do his thing to us,” Keisel said. “We’ll probably be laughing at him, but he’ll be fired up ready to play. We can’t let what happened last week happen again.”
The Steelers, of course, lost to the then 1-8 New York Jets, and the Dolphins are worse. They’ve already committed to the future by moving rookie quarterback John Beck into the lineup and trading deep threat Chris Chambers.
The Dolphins are also so beat up at running back that they’ve signed Williams – out of the league for two years – and are thinking of playing the small-but-slow back who was with the Steelers for a game last season, Patrick Cobbs.
All of those problems, Porter said, will keep him quiet.
“Obviously I’m not going to be walking into the game under the same circumstances I thought I would,” Porter said. “I thought I’d be walking in and we’d be about 7-2, they’d be 7-2, and it would be a blockbuster. I can’t be the same guy I thought I was going to be out there that day. I’ll still come ready to play, but I just can’t talk as much as I wanted to.”
Porter was asked if he might go so far as to wear a disguise.
“Nah, but I can’t get out there talking all this mess,” he said. “You can’t talk mess now. They’ll just say, ‘Look at the score.’ That’s kind of how it’s been.”
Keisel doesn’t buy it.
“That’s what Joey does, he talks trash,” Keisel said. “He’s a great player and those guys have lost a lot of really close games and I’m sure coming in here to Pittsburgh and getting a win would be something great for him.”
Then again, there’s Porter’s decline. He’s part of the reason for the team’s plight.
The Dolphins signed the 30-year-old with bad knees for $20 million and he’s recorded only 1.5 sacks.
He’s playing outside linebacker in the Dolphins 3-4 defense, but Jason Taylor is rushing the quarterback from the right side. Porter has spent much of his time in coverage on the strong side, but figures to get his chances against Steelers right tackle Willie Colon.
“That’s what everybody’s telling me. There’s a lot of pressure,” Colon said. “But really, I’m not thinking about it like that. I’ve got to go out there and get the job done. We need this win. It’s not about Joey Porter. It’s not about him coming back to Pittsburgh. We need a win and that’s my mind-set.”
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