After coming over to the Pittsburgh Steelers in free agency following four seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, there was quite a bit of buzz surrounding linebacker Patrick Queen — not only for jumping to the other side of a heated division rivalry but also for the salary he earned on the open market after an All-Pro season.
Queen was expected to solidify a position of need for the Steelers, being that true game-changing piece in the middle of their defense.
But in Year 1 Queen had a roller-coaster season in Pittsburgh. While he made some plays and had some good moments during the 2024 season, he was far too inconsistent in a new scheme and with the green dot on his helmet, leading to some communication issues and frustrations defensively, especially in the midst of the five-game losing streak to end the year.
Now entering the 2025 season, Queen has a year in the Steelers’ scheme under his belt. He also has a new running mate in second-year pro Payton Wilson, who is slated to start next to him and should free him up some in coverage, setting up a potential bounce-back year for the former All-Pro.
For Pro Football Focus, Queen is the Steelers’ bounce-back candidate this season.
“Queen’s best stretch of NFL play came alongside Roquan Smith in Baltimore, but his first season in Pittsburgh resembled the inconsistencies of his early career,” PFF’s Dalton Wasserman writes. “He earned a 56.8 PFF grade in 2024, ranking outside the top 60 qualified linebackers. While he showed some improvement down the stretch, Queen continued to struggle against downhill rushing attacks.
“A new partnership with rookie Payton Wilson could help stabilize his performance and potentially spark a return to form.”
Of course, Wilson isn’t a rookie anymore, but he’ll be the full-time starter next to Queen this season after the loss of Elandon Roberts in free agency. Wilson is good in coverage and is another athletic freak at the position, which theoretically should take some of the heavy lifting off of Queen’s plate. That hopefully allows him to get back to his high-end ways from late in his Baltimore tenure.
Those high-end ways include a second-team All-Pro from the 2023 season, along with performing well in coverage, creating turnovers and generating overall splash defensively. That just didn’t happen in Pittsburgh last season.
Queen finished with a team-best 129 tackles, six tackles for loss, seven pass deflections, two forced fumbles, and one sack. But he left quite a bit to be desired overall. He played 1,164 snaps on the season and graded out at a 56.8 overall from PFF.
Coverage was an issue, too, particularly in man, as he was charged with 67 receptions allowed on 81 targets for 728 yards and a touchdown. One of the big selling points with Queen was his work in coverage, but time and time again, teams went after him in the middle of the field, and Queen had no real answers.
It wasn’t just issues in coverage, either. Queen was a mess in the tackling department, which wasn’t anything new from his time in Baltimore.
According to our charting, Queen missed 22 tackles last season, the most on the team, and had a 13.7% missed-tackles rate.
Some of the struggles could be correlated to wearing the green dot, something he admittedly struggled with in Baltimore before the Ravens traded for Roquan Smith and handed him the green dot. Queen is set to wear the green dot once again defensively and will need to be better.
All those changes last season for Queen with new faces, new responsibilities and greater expectations hindered him, but he has to be past that now and has a real opportunity to bounce back. If he does, the Steelers’ defense will be that much better this season.
If not, it could be another long year.
