Coming off a second-team All-Pro season with the Baltimore Ravens, Patrick Queen put himself on the map as one of the top inside linebackers in the NFL, doing so just ahead of free agency.
He parlayed that into a three-year, $41 million deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers to stay in the AFC North.
Along with that All-Pro season, Queen firmly entrenched himself among the best of the best in the NFL. Pro Football Focus certainly agrees as Gordon McGuinness ranked Queen at No. 7 in the league ahead of the 2024 season at the position, ahead of the New York Giants’ Bobby Okereke, Chicago’s T.J. Edwards and Cleveland’s Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.
“One of the most aggressive linebackers in football since being drafted in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Ravens, Queen has always ranked among the top players at the position in positively graded plays,” McGuinness writes. “Particularly impressive about his development is how he has reduced his negatively graded plays.
“In 2020, he earned a negative grade on 14.0% of his snaps, and he brought that number down each year, all the way to just 7.6% in 2023.”
Early in his NFL career, it was a tough transition to the pros for Queen, who was a star at LSU before becoming a first-round draft pick.
That tough transition put a dent in Queen’s stock overall, but in his final two seasons in Baltimore he turned it on next to fellow All-Pro Roquan Smith and became the linebacker many expected him to be.
Ultimately, that led to a big payday for Queen from the Steelers.
Coming to Pittsburgh, Queen becomes the best linebacker the Steelers have had off the ball since the Ryan Shazier days. Those are big shoes to fill, but Queen is a perfect fit overall.
Last season with the Ravens, Queen had a dominant season, recording a career-high 133 tackles, nine tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and an interception, earning second-team All-Pro accolades. He is a true run-and-hit linebacker downhill against the run and can drop into coverage, giving him the ability to play in all situations.
At just 24 years old, Queen’s best football appears to be ahead of him, and that will hopefully come quickly in the Black and Gold at a position that was a major area of need entering the offseason.
Queen will be relied on heavily in Pittsburgh. He’ll wear the green dot for the Steelers’ defense and will look to put an end to the revolving door at inside linebacker in the post-Shazier days, which are now closing in on nearly a decade. He was an unexpected signing, but excitement is high regarding Queen as the Steelers finally have a high-end inside linebacker once again.
