The Pittsburgh Steelers paid ILB Patrick Queen well in free agency, though not as well as initial projections. While the Steelers gave him a three-year, $41 million contract, most believed he would get a bigger deal. Perhaps the reason he did not is the looming question of whether he can thrive without his “Batman”.
Again and again, we hear this idea that Patrick Queen, a former first-round pick out of LSU and an All-Pro last year, is only as good as he has been the past year and a half because he got to play next to Roquan Smith. He won’t have Smith with the Steelers, but instead Elandon Roberts, Cole Holcomb, and Payton Wilson. But not everybody in Baltimore even buys into the idea that Smith somehow “made” Queen who he is.
“People tend to forget that Queen was one of the youngest players in the league when the Ravens drafted him, and he didn’t play much college football”, wrote Jeff Zrebiec recently, the Ravens beat writer for The Athletic. “I think this notion that Queen needed Smith to arrive so he could improve is unfair”.
Zrebiec has covered the Ravens for the majority of their existence, so he understands the lineage of the position. While Ray Lewis takes center stage, they also had C.J. Mosley before Queen. They also had studs that few talk about now like Jamie Sharper and Jarrett Johnson. Even their new defensive coordinator, Zachary Orr, is a part of that lineage, his career ending prematurely due to injury.
“After a slow start in 2022, Queen started to play much better before the Smith trade was made”, Zrebiec points out. “He was improving. Did the presence of Smith help Queen get to another level? Sure. That’s how it works. Playing alongside great players tends to raise your level, too. I think Queen will be just fine in those roles. He’s a smarter, more experienced and explosive player than he was two years ago”.
Zrebiec wrote this as part of mailbag, a reader questioning if he can do things in Pittsburgh he couldn’t there. Patrick Queen will wear the green dot for the Steelers, for example, which he wasn’t ready for when the Ravens gave it to him. Roquan Smith took over that duty when he got there.
Over the past two seasons—mostly playing with Smith—Queen has been one of the best off-ball linebackers, period. He has 250 tackles during that time with 18 for loss, 8.5 sacks, 20 hits, 2 forced fumbles, 3 interceptions, and 12 passes defensed.
And he will only turn 25 years old while he is in Latrobe. Of course playing with and learning from Smith made Queen better. But Smith helped Queen raise his game; he didn’t simply benefit from playing next to a better player.
There are always questions when a player changes teams and moves to a new system. Not everything works out as both sides hope, and perhaps the Steelers and Queen run into that. But I’m certain it won’t simply be because he doesn’t have Smith by his side. It’s not as though he was ever a bad player, or that he wasn’t already playing well in 2022 before the trade.
