PITTSBURGH – Patrick Queen is well-versed in the labels attached to him. They pop up whenever the Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker happens to search his name in social media.
The labels — Queen estimates there are at least 100 or so out there — run the gamut. He can’t do this. He can’t do that. Communication isn’t his thing, odd considering Queen’s mouth never seems to stop running, either on the field or off.
The one that comes up most frequently though, is the one the charismatic 25-year-old is most eager to shed after signing the most lucrative free-agent contract in Steelers history: that the Pro Bowler’s success in Baltimore was the byproduct of playing next to All-Pro Roquan Smith.
Do not get Queen wrong. He believes Smith is “a hell of a player and a hell of a teammate, a hell of a leader” and the best player at their position in the game.
Yet the idea that all those tackles (a career-high 133 a year ago) and all that production and all that shine was mostly the byproduct of opponents building game plans to neutralize Smith, allowing Queen to run free?
Queen simply doesn’t believe that’s the case.
And so he sprinted to the other side of one of the NFL’s most heated rivalries to “prove what I want to prove.”
The Steelers are banking on it in more ways than one. Inside linebacker has essentially been a revolving door in the six seasons since a spinal injury ended rising star Ryan Shazier’s career in 2017.
If Queen doesn’t like his mentions on social media, they likely pale to the carnage he would see if he entered the names Jon Bostic, Mark Barron, Joe Schobert, Devin Bush (whom the Steelers traded up to get in the 2020 draft only to have an ACL injury early in his second season that stunted his development) and Myles Jack, all of whom had relatively brief stays in Pittsburgh trying to fill the void left by Shazier, with varying levels of success.
The franchise hopes its long search for Shazier’s heir is over. So does Queen, who grew up in Louisiana playing Madden football unable to shake the feeling he would one day wear black and gold.
“It felt like I was destined to be here,” he said.
The overwhelming sense of fate is also one of the reasons Queen has leaned into being in Pittsburgh. He’s hardly the first player to move from one AFC North rival to the other. He is undoubtedly, however, the loudest.
“He’s got a lot of juice, energy, bringing it every day,” outside linebacker Nick Herbig said. “And he’s out there just talking (smack), you know?”
That’s not exactly a bad character trait for a player who will be responsible for relaying the calls by defensive coordinator Teryl Austin to the other 10 players on the field.
The irony, of course, is that for all of Queen’s swagger and non-stop jawing, the Steelers believe having a true three-down linebacker lined up inside will only help a defense that will be asked to carry the load early while a new-look offense led by Russell Wilson figures things out.
There have been times in recent years when Austin had to move the green dot around or have an assistant make the call from the sideline because the defense lacked a linebacker versatile enough to stay on the field in all situations.
Enter Queen who, as contradictory as it sounds, could in a way have a soothing impact.
“It can get a little erratic sometimes with who’s calling and who’s got it,” Austin said. “There’s been times we had different guys doing it. So, I think you have that one steady person. I think that’s really calming for the defense.”
It may be the only way in which “calm” and Queen run into each other in the same sentence. In the moments before the snap, he is 6-feet and 232 pounds of kinetic energy. If he’s not barking at the defensive line to shade one way or the other, he’s turning toward the secondary to make hand signals on the coverage. Or he’s in fellow inside linebacker Elandon Roberts’ ear as the two divvy up their duties on a given play.
Austin called Queen a player the Steelers “can build around,” though for all of his confidence, Queen has a deft understanding of where he stands in the pecking order on a unit that includes one of the best pass-rush tandems in the league in perennial All-Pro T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith.
“If I do my job to the best of my ability to give them guys the second to get back to the quarterback, they’ll get there,” Queen said.
Something Queen could also potentially do on occasion. He has 13 1/2 sacks in four seasons, though there’s a chance he could have more opportunities to get into the opposing backfield in the place that likes to call itself “Blitzburgh.”
Queen will do whatever is asked because he believes he can do whatever is asked. Forget whatever label he gets tagged with elsewhere. The one he’s working on is far more ambitious.
“I want to be great,” he said. “I want to be ‘The Guy.’ My whole mindset coming here was just ‘Trying to be the best that came through here’ and etch a name for myself.”
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