Patrick Queen spent most of his career playing with Lamar Jackson on the Baltimore Ravens. Now for the first time in his career, he is on the other side of the ball inside of a stadium. In his first game against his former team as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, he is gearing up for the opportunity. Including the opportunity to finally play more than two-hand touch.
“He wants to win. He’ll do whatever it takes to win, and he knows what it takes”, Patrick Queen said of Lamar Jackson, via the Steelers’ website. “Going against him, just not being able to tackle him in practice, to finally get the chance to tackle him, that should be fun. He’s just a great competitor, a great athlete. He can do whatever he wants on the field, as we all know. So for me, it’s just going against the best”.
With quarterbacks making the GDP of small island nations these days, NFL teams do their utmost to protect their most valuable investments. That includes a hands-off approach on the practice field, with many teams having their quarterbacks wear red jerseys. But Jackson will be wearing Purple and Black on Sunday, Queen Black and Gold. In other words, he is now fair game.
The Ravens drafted Patrick Queen in the first round in 2020, two years after doing the same with Lamar Jackson. He played out his rookie contract, but they did not exercise his fifth-year option. As he said on the record for the first time Wednesday, they also didn’t offer him any kind of contract this offseason.
In fact, Queen isn’t the most popular person in Baltimore right now. Nor does he have much love for the Ravens this week. DeShon Elliott may hop on Marlon Humphrey’s podcast, but Queen isn’t talking to his former teammates, including Jackson.
“I have not” spoken to Jackson, Queen said. “The only person I’ve talked to is Roquan [Smith]. I talked to him last week, just so we could talk early in the week, because we know we’ll both be locked in. Probably don’t get any messages from anybody this week”.
In his first season with the Steelers, Patrick Queen has 62 tackles through nine games with four for loss. He has yet to force or recover a fumble or intercept a pass or record a sack, but he does have three passes defensed. He admits he got off to a slow start, but he has picked up his play in recent weeks—just in time to face the Ravens and Lamar Jackson.
So how do they stop him? “Just keeping everything simple, trying to get after him, not let him do what he does, and just everybody do their job”, Queen said of Jackson, who is pacing for his third MVP award with the way he has played so far this season.
But for both Patrick Queen and Lamar Jackson, they only have one priority on Sunday: winning. Whichever team wins will have control of the AFC North. Though the Ravens have more to lose based on record alone, the Steelers’ daunting second-half schedule is as much of a concern. Plus, the final game between the Steelers and Ravens is in Baltimore.
