The Pittsburgh Steelers made a significant splash early in the free agency period, landing All-Pro linebacker Patrick Queen on a three-year, $41 million deal, giving them a major upgrade at the off-ball linebacker position.
Last season with the Baltimore 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. Entering free agency, he was the biggest fish in the pond at the off-ball linebacker position, and the Steelers did extremely well to not only land him, but also steal him away from the AFC North rival Baltimore Ravens in the process.
But for Pro Football Focus’ Sam Monson, the Queen signing is one of the biggest boom-or-bust moves of the offseason in the NFL landscape due to questions about Queen’s ability to play at a high level without fellow All-Pro Roquan Smith next to him.
In a piece for PFF.com, Monson highlighted Queen along with four others as the biggest boom-or-bust signings in the NFL, joining the likes of running back Saquon Barkley with the Philadelphia Eagles, defensive end Danielle Hunter with the Houston Texans, offensive tackle Tyron Smith with the New York Jets and quarterback Kirk Cousins with the Atlanta Falcons.
“Patrick Queen hit free agency coming off back-to-back career years for the Baltimore Ravens. His PFF grade improved to 73.0 last season and his coverage grade to 74.4. He allowed a 96.6 passer rating into his coverage, which doesn’t sound impressive until you understand that the NFL average when targeting linebackers is around 10 points higher than that,” Monson writes regarding the Queen signing for the Steelers. “Coupled with his elite athleticism and speed, it’s easy to see why the Steelers pursued him as a priority signing, even independent of the bonus of taking a good player away from a division rival.
“The red flag is that Queen’s improvement coincides almost perfectly with Roquan Smith‘s arrival in Baltimore. And not just season-to-season. Five of the eight PFF game grades Queen had posted before the Ravens acquired Queen in 2022 had been 56.1 or below. After Smith arrived, he had just two such games and saw an obvious uptick in his best performances as well.”
It’s no secret that Queen got better once the Ravens acquired Smith and plugged him in next to the former first-round pick out of LSU.
This just in: an elite-level linebacker makes everyone around him better. Shocker!
But what seems to get lost in the Queen/Smith discussion is that linebackers around Smith during his tenure in Chicago never reached the level of play that Queen did the last two seasons. It’s not like Queen had world beaters around him pre-Smith either.
Boiling Queen’s value and abilities down to what Smith’s presence did seems entirely unfair when judging Queen. Making the case that he’s a product of Smith and Smith alone takes away from all the hard work and development that Queen has undergone at the linebacker position, one that is historically one of the most difficult to transition to from the collegiate ranks to the pros, especially from a pre-snap responsibility standpoint.
It takes time for linebackers to fully develop in the NFL and figure things out. That appears to be the case with Queen. That it happened with Smith alongside him might just be a coincidence. It might not be, too.
But just because he’s no longer not lining up next to Smith doesn’t make him a boom-or-bust signing.
The Steelers know what they’re getting. They’ve had to prepare to play against him eight times so far in his career and seemingly know what he does well and what he doesn’t. Add the fact that they got him relatively cheap compared to market projections and there’s no boom or bust here. It’s nothing but a positive.
