When Pittsburgh Steelers draft pick Cory Trice slid from the middle rounds of the NFL Draft to the seventh, the fall had a significant impact on his checkbook.

Instead of a six-figure signing bonus afforded to mid-round picks, Trice had a slotted value of $84,000 as the No. 241 player taken in the three-day draft.

Consider that Steelers’ fourth-rounder Nick Herbig’s rookie contract called for a slot value of $673,000, and you see how costly the drop was for Trice, the tall cornerback from Purdue.

It also means the Steelers aren’t as heavily invested in Trice as the draft picks they took in the earlier rounds.

The slight mattered little to Trice when he showed up at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex last weekend to attend the Steelers’ rookie minicamp.

“Really, all my life I’ve had to prove myself,” Trice said after the second day of workouts. “It’s one of those things where I have to prove myself again. I don’t mind doing it.”

The 6-foot-3, 206-pound Trice was one of the Big Ten’s top corners in 2022, but medical concerns caused his tumble in the draft. A high ankle sprain and torn ACL in his knee limited Trice to two games in 2021, and he sustained a broken ankle in high school.

When Trice arrived in West Lafayette, Ind., in 2018, his primary position was safety. After his freshman season, he was moved to cornerback, one of the first adjustments Trice had to overcome at the college level.

“When I made the switch to corner, I had to prove myself and establish myself there,” he said. “Coming back from the injury in 2021, I had to prove myself there. … Guys on the field don’t care about my injuries. I just had to move past it.”

Although he played some with a knee brace, Trice showed no injury concerns last season when he started all 13 games for the Boilermakers and led the team with 10 pass breakups. He had two interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown to seal the victory in the Old Oaken Bucket game against Indiana that vaulted Purdue to the Big Ten West title.

Trice emerged as a draft prospect because of his ability to play in press coverage, trapping receivers at the line of scrimmage before they could establish their routes. Even though the Steelers used the first pick of the second round to take Penn State corner Joey Porter Jr., they didn’t hesitate to select Trice with their first of two seventh-round picks.

Trice is about half an inch taller and a dozen pounds heavier than Porter. With each coming from a Big Ten background, they were familiar with each other’s game but didn’t connect until rookie minicamp.

“It’s been great,” Porter said. “We’re still trying to figure each other out, learn about each other. We talked about our experiences in college and playing against each other. It’s been good so far.”

While Trice excelled at containing receivers at the line of scrimmage, he faced some difficulties in coverage after the ball was in the air, which contributed to lower-round draft stock.

“When you’re dealing with a longer defensive back, there may be some issues in space and off coverage and everything like that,” Steelers secondary coach Grady Brown said. “A lot of times in college, you really do what you’re best at doing as often as you can. We’ll find out exactly what it is he needs to get better at. Right now, we want to focus on what we do have.”

As evidenced by the type of cornerbacks the Steelers drafted, they wanted bigger cornerbacks on the field to match up with the likes of Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Rashod Bateman, Amari Cooper and Odell Beckham Jr. in the AFC North.

“When you have big corners that are long, they have range, they can run, they can locate the ball — that’s advantageous,” assistant general manager Andy Weidl said. “We’re aware of the players that we have in our division, the receivers that we have to defend against, and I think with Cory and Joey, as we say, speed and length can shrink the field on offense.

“These guys have speed, and they have length.”

Trice’s 4.46 time in the 40-yard dash was only .01 second slower than Porter’s best. While Porter tied for the longest arms measured among cornerbacks at the NFL Combine, Trice would have tied for eighth had he not been listed as a safety — another slight.

Then again, Trice is used to it.

“Everything happens for a reason,” he said. “It definitely motivates me just to be in the position I’m in knowing that I was injured last year around this time.

“Now, I have to prove myself again.”