final straw<\/a>\u201d for the Steelers in their relationship with cornerback Joey Porter Jr. came when Porter, after two days of fully participating in practice, claimed that he had back pain on Wednesday.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s when the Steelers decided to make a trade.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it was a win for Porter. He got what he wanted \u2014 a one-way ticket out of town.<\/p>\n
Former Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons achieved the same result last year. Once the Cowboys realized he was serious about not playing unless and until he got a new deal, they traded him to the Packers. For the Steelers, who seemed to think Porter eventually would blink, the fourth game became the moment they accepted that Porter was committed to the bit.<\/p>\n
And, yes, it was a bit. He wasn\u2019t too injured to play, if he was injured at all. Amazingly, he\u2019s not even listed on the Cowboys\u2019 injury report, one day after being limited on Pittsburgh\u2019s final report of the week, and in turn ruled out for Thursday night\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
For players who can\u2019t hold out due to the financial consequences under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, a hold in that lingers until they get what they want is the best, and only, alternative.<\/p>\n
Was it a real injury? If the team has no way to challenge it without creating an ugly legal fight and\/or a P.R. shitstorm, it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
For most players, a lifetime of football has caused some condition from the top of their head to the tips of their toes that would justify not playing. Unless the team is willing to stage a confrontation that would instantly ruin an already tenuous relationship, the only viable option is to trade the player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steelers thought the dance was over. When the music started up again, they decided they\u2019d had enough.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-867821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}