The 2011 Week 3 meeting between the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks might have gone down as one of the more forgettable games in NFL history.
It was a 13-10 final between a pair of non-playoff teams led by pedestrian quarterbacks (Kevin Kolb and Tarvaris Jackson) that would finish 8-8 and 7-9. No points were scored over the final 20-plus minutes of game time.
But that ordinary afternoon in downtown Seattle did feature a notable pair of plays that helped bookend two extraordinary individual careers: Patrick Peterson’s first of 34 (and counting) NFL interceptions and Joey Porter’s 98th (and final) NFL sack.
No one could have thought that day that some 12 years later, Peterson again might be pairing up with Joey Porter to make “splash” plays.
Now on the cusp of his 33rd birthday, Peterson joins Joey Porter Jr. as players in their respective first seasons as Pittsburgh Steelers cornerbacks. Of course, while Porter Jr. is a rookie eager to learn, Peterson is a savvy 13-year vet keen on passing along what only a three-time first-team All-Pro can.
“That’s Patrick Peterson. I’ve been watching his highlights since I was a little kid,” Porter Jr. said after a recent Steelers organized team activities session. “To be in the room with him and learn from him, that means a lot to me.”
Porter Jr. was 11 years old when Peterson was a rookie, and one of the players who started with him six times on that Cardinals defense was Porter’s father.
By the end of that season, Porter was retired, and Peterson was taking his first steps to being named to the NFL’s all-decade team nine years later.
“Pat Pete, that is a Hall of Famer,” Porter Jr. said. “I’m trying to learn to do everything he does. I told him I’m going to get my golf clubs and go golfing with him. I know he’s a big golf guy. I’m going to try to be a big golf guy myself. To do anything to learn from him, I’m willing to do.”
Porter isn’t the only member of the Steelers secondary giddy to get the chance to share the field with Peterson.
At least Porter is a rookie. Tre Norwood, who was in the sixth grade when Peterson was taken with the fifth overall pick in the 2011 draft, is a three-year veteran who has seen plenty in the NFL.
But sometimes Norwood is still like that little kid in junior high, marveling at the weekly highlight reel that was Peterson’s early career for the Cardinals.
“That’s super cool,” Norwood said of being a peer of Peterson’s. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say when I was younger that was one of the main guys that I watched playing the defensive back role, so to share the locker room with him, the same meeting room and being able to play with him on the field, it means a lot.
“He is a very great vet, always open to answering questions, helping us out so another vet we have added to the room with experience that can still play a high level — All-Pro guy — that we can lean on and learn from.”
The Steelers are a marquee franchise that has — and has had, in its past — no shortage of high-profile players. But it’s not every day a team adds a player the stature of Peterson.
Though the Steelers have three other veterans with realistic Hall of Fame aspirations on their defense — T.J. Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Cameron Heyward — no free-agent signee in Steelers history arrived in Pittsburgh with a resume as sterling as Peterson’s.
“It’s an honor,” Fitzpatrick said, “to play with a guy like him.”
An eight-time Pro Bowler, Peterson signed a two-year, $14 million contract with the Steelers in March. He is not the dominant player he was a decade ago in Arizona — his most recent Pro Bowl selection was in 2018 — but the Steelers are counting on Peterson to play an every-down (or approaching so) role. Perhaps just as important, they’re hoping he can help mold their secondary of the future.
“He’s definitely a guy I looked up to, and now I am on the field with him,” rookie cornerback Cory Trice said. “So it’s a dream come true for me.”
Peterson joins Heyward as the Steelers’ most tenured NFL veteran, the only players on the roster who have been in the league more than a decade. Heyward, 34, is the only player on the team older than Peterson.
“I’m just coming to help as best as I can,” Peterson said. “This is Cam’s and Minkah’s and T.J.’s team. I am just trying to do my part, and if that’s to take a little weight off their shoulders or leadership, so good. If it’s to gather the guys around more, so be it. So I am just here to help out. I am not here to take over the locker room. … I just want to help this team be its best.”
Peterson prefers that understated approach. But make no mistake, he already has shown to be an outgoing, personable and respected voice that carries weight in the Steelers locker room.
“I’m just going to continue being me,” Peterson said. “Don’t change anything. I’ve been in this league going on 13 years. This league is the same, and I am gonna stay the same, so all I can do is continue being out there as ‘Pat Pete.’ “
