First of all, there's only three cornerbacks in the entire NFL making 30+ million dollars a year: McDuffie, Gardner, and Stingley. The #4 guy makes 25 mill. So "looking at North of 32 million" would be asinine for Joey Porter, a guy who just figured out how to stop grabbing and getting penalized after 2.5 years in the league.
The Steelers are already paying a lot of money in the secondary for Ramsey and Dean. Ramsey has an 8-figure dead cap number for the next two years, so dropping him in order to retain JPJ at 30+ million would cost them well north of 40 net. Plus we all know about TJ Watt's $42 million cap hit for 2026 and 2027. It's just not financially feasible to spend that much more on an already overpaid defense.
If they can trade Porter to a bad team for a first-round pick in 2027, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.