FRISCO, Texas -- New Dallas Cowboys cornerback Joey Porter Jr. knew he was in trouble on Thursday morning, the day of his new team's "Thursday Night Football" showdown with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Porter Jr., who the Cowboys acquired in a trade from the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for a 2027 sixth-round pick and a 2028 second-round pick, played on 48.1% (25 of 52) of the Cowboys' defensive snaps in their 34-30 road win over the Houston Texans. He and the team were ramping up for him to be a full-time starter after being on the roster for a week, but those plans changed quickly when he woke up that day.
He had an itchy throat in the morning, and that feeling stuck with him during morning walkthroughs with his Cowboys teammates. Porter Jr. reported feeling ill to the team, and they gave him cold medicine to deal with his symptoms. By the time it was time to drive down from Frisco, where Dallas' team facility is located, to Arlington, where AT&T Stadium is just over 35 miles down the road, Porter Jr. was ready to vomit. He told his Uber driver to floor it to the stadium, so that he could go ahead and vomit when he arrived. That's when he and the team knew he wouldn't be suiting up Thursday night.
"I really just couldn't hold anything down. I just kept throwing up," Porter Jr. said Wednesday after practice, his first media availability since the illness. "I tried to fight through it. I tried taking a nap before the game to shake it off, but I couldn't hold anything down. That's when they made the call to send me home. ... Throughout the day, it just kept getting worse and worse. On my way to the game when I was throwing up outside of my Uber on the way to the game, it was brutal. Not going to lie."
Week 5 was supposed to be Porter Jr.'s home opener against a winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers team starting Jalon Daniels, an undrafted rookie making his second career start. A happy coronation in front of his new home fans was all lined up. Instead, Porter Jr. ended up watching Dallas lose from home in a shocking 24-16 defeat.
"It was very frustrating. I was prepared to play all week. The mind was playing. The mindset was to get the dub," Porter Jr. said. "Obviously, I didn't get to do that, and we didn't get the dub. I was pretty pissed in my couple days off."
Not that it excuses Dallas' poor performance, particularly on defense where they allowed a whopping 241 yards rushing, but Thursday was the Cowboys' third game in 12 days. That stretch also included two 10-hour flights from Dallas to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They were all worn out. Energy is much higher around the locker room, especially from Porter Jr., with a 10-day gap between Thursday and their "Sunday Night Football" matchup at the Green Bay Packers (3-2) in Week 6. The layoff especially helped Porter, who will now have been a Cowboy for 17 days before he takes the field with a higher workload.
"I feel great. Those extra days definitely helped. Helped me lock in with the playbook too. It was win-win. I was mad I couldn't be out there with the guys on that Thursday night," Porter Jr. said. "I was beating myself up, and my dad was just telling me 'keep the main thing the main thing and focus on what we have ahead of us.' That's Green Bay."
Porter Jr.'s Packers outlook
With a higher comfort with the Cowboys' playbook, does that mean Porter Jr. will be a full-time starter on Sunday? Yes, yes, it does.
"Definitely," he said with a soft smile. "That's what I'm shooting for, and that's what they're [the coaching staff] shooting for as well, so that's what we're going to try to do."
His return is crucial for a Dallas secondary that has the highest opposing passer rating (120.5) in the entire league entering Week 6. Especially since the Green Bay Packers' passing attack is full steam ahead after a 31-7 Week 5 demolition of the Chicago Bears on Sunday. Quarterback Jordan Love completed 25 of his 31 throws for 367 yards and 2 touchdowns against Chicago, with much of his damage coming in explosive play chunks. He went big-game hunting over and over to both wide receiver Christian Watson (143 yards receiving and 2 receiving touchdowns on 6 catches) and wide receiver Matthew Golden (123 yards receiving on 6 catches). That made Watson and Golden the first Green Bay duo with 120-plus yards receiving in a game since 2016.
Love hit Watson for gains of 42 yards (the game's first touchdown that made the score 7-0), 31 yards and 53 yards (Love's second touchdown pass that made the score 20-7 with 13:10 left in the third quarter). He connected with Golden on throws of 36 yards and 50 yards. According to ESPN Insights, Love joined Ben Roethlisberger as the only players with five completions of 30-plus air yards in a game since ESPN began tracking the metric 20 years ago in 2006.
However, Porter Jr. sees Love's eagerness to let it rip downfield as an opportunity for him and a Cowboys defense that has gone three consecutive games without a takeaway, one game away from the longest streak in team history. Dallas is the only team in the NFL without an interception this season.
"I see that we have a lot of opportunities to make plays on the ball, so I know we're all excited for that," Porter Jr. said. "We really have to rally to the ball and make plays when they call on us to."
Cowboys edge rusher Rashan Gary, the Packers' 2019 first-round pick the year before Green Bay used their next one on Love in 2020, spent six of his seven seasons with the Packers practicing against Love every day. He's making sure his teammates have a healthy respect for the 27-year-old quarterback, now in his fourth year as an NFL starter.
"Swagger, confidence, his poise. Understanding defensive ID. Understanding the nickel's rotation. Understanding the coverage he is getting in the back. Able to find a way to get his playmakers the ball. A guy that is relentless," Gary said Wednesday. "A guy that wants to throw the ball, but if his lane is open, he will scramble. Just a true winner."
It will be interesting to see how much Love tries to go Porter Jr.'s way. In his Dallas debut against the Texans, Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud didn't target Porter Jr. during his 19 coverage snaps.
"It's a respect thing. That's how I look at it at the end of the day. If I'm not getting any work, that's the beautiful thing about defense," Porter Jr. "You can find your own work. If they're not looking toward you, that's when you need to get in the run game and show your presence. ... It can never be boring. There's always work out there. That's what I look forward to."
Dallas knows that being the league's 31st-ranked total defense (395.4 total yards per game allowed), last-place run defense (168.4 rushing yards per game allowed), and worst third-down defense (52.6% third-down conversion rate allowed) won't cut it. That's why they hired former Cleveland Browns head coach and Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine this week as a senior assistant to first-time defensive coordinator Christian Parker. Porter Jr. sees that move and the decision to trade for him as investments in winning.
"It just shows that we're trying to get things done the right way, and we're trying to win. That's the main thing that everyone is focused on, to win," Porter Jr. said. "When you have guys all willing and able to put into the pile, that's when good things happen. That's what we're looking forward to."
So when will four steady quarters of action come for the Cowboys? They led the Buccaneers 10-7 before the meltdown occurred in the second half. Maybe Week 6 is the time.
"It's right there. We all watch the tape. We all know what we need to work on," Porter Jr. said. "It's a couple plays that are holding us back. If we just do what we need to do, those plays and those little miscues should be cleaned up."
