Steelers A to Z: After missing rookie year with knee injury, Cory Trice looking to make roster

Editor’s note: From now until the first practice of training camp at Saint Vincent College, TribLive is running through the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 90-man roster, looking at each player and assessing his outlook for the 2024 season. The breakdown will run in alphabetical order with at least two players each day between June 14 and July 25. Contract data courtesy spotrac.com.

CB Cory Trice Jr.

Experience/age: First season/turned 24 in May

Contract status: $816,109 cap hit if he makes the team, signed through the 2026 season

The past: The first of the team’s two seventh-round draft picks in 2023, Trice entered his rookie training camp with optimism. He held his own in offseason workouts as a press cornerback, and his size, speed and skill set brought comparisons to the team’s first pick of the second round, Joey Porter Jr.

Trice’s chance of joining Porter on the 53-man roster were dashed less than a week into training camp when he tore the ACL in his knee, an injury that placed him on injured reserve for the entire season.

It was the second significant knee injury for Trice, who missed all but two games of his 2021 season at Purdue. Trice returned in 2022 and started 13 games. He had 34 tackles, two interceptions and a team-high 10 pass breakups.

Trice was projected to be drafted in the middle rounds, but concerns about his injury history caused him to drop to the seventh. The Steelers were enticed by his 6-foot-3, 206-pound frame and 4.47 speed.

A lot of excitement surrounded Steelers Cory Trice last season, and it's a repeated thought entering yr 2 pic.twitter.com/Y9owXoD0wU

— Bo Marchionte (@BoMarchionte) May 28, 2024

2024 outlook: Trice returned to the practice field for offseason workouts wearing a brace, and he is expected to be healthy when training camp begins July 25.

Expect the Steelers to take a cautious approach with Trice knowing that it often takes more than a year for a player to fully return to strength from an ACL injury. Trice can report to camp, however, knowing that openings exist in the secondary.

Porter established himself as a starter midway through his rookie season, and the Steelers traded wide receiver Dionte Johnson so they could add veteran Donte Jackson at the other outside cornerback spot.

The rest of cornerback group – inside and outside — will be determined in training camp and the preseason. Trice will face veteran competition in Anthony Averett, Grayland Arnold, Josiah Scott and Thomas Graham Jr. Darius Rush, another product of the 2023 draft, is another candidate as is safety/corner Ryan Watts, a seventh-round pick in this year’s class.