Queen looks to become Steelers first Pro Bowl ILB since 2017
It was impossible to ignore the symbolism after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ organized team activities session Thursday.
Ryan Shazier, frequently a guest at practice, was in the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex locker room sitting at a chair near his old stall — a spot not too far from where Patrick Queen’s locker was positioned when he joined the team this spring.
Queen is the Steelers’ latest (and greatest) attempt at finally replacing Shazier.
Queen agreed to a three-year, $41 million deal during the early “legal tampering period” of unrestricted free agency in March. Ten weeks later, the 24-year-old was chatting with Shazier, the most recent Pro Bowl inside linebacker for a Steelers franchise that has had 18 such off-ball Pro Bowl linebackers in their history.
Shazier was bestowed Pro Bowl honors in 2017, just weeks after he suffered a career-ending neck injury.
The seven years the Steelers have gone since having an inside/ middle linebacker named to the Pro Bowl? Not since before 1950 had the franchise gone that long without one (according to pro-football-reference.com).
Queen is working to claim the role of star off-ball linebacker the Steelers so often have had throughout their history but so sorely have lacked in recent years.
“I’m just trying to come in here and do what I was supposed to do — help lead, help this team win,” Queen said this week. “Just coming in here and doing my job and doing it at a high level.
“There’s a reason why they brought me in here, so the only thing other than that is just learning my responsibilities, doing my job and doing what they ask of me and playing at a high level.”
It’s comically early, of course, one week into the three weeks of OTAs that precede mandatory minicamp, seven weeks of training camp plus preseason before the regular season kicks off. But Queen is making an impression with skills that earned him second-team AP All-Pro honors with the division champion Baltimore Ravens last season.
“Just how smart he is,” Steelers rookie inside linebacker Payton Wilson said. “Obviously, everybody sees his athletic traits. He’s a super-athletic linebacker, as I’ve learned over last few days. He knows the game so well, and with how slow he makes the game in his head, he’s able to make so many plays over the field.”
Though none was as high-profile (or highly paid) as Queen, the Steelers have tried myriad veterans and once traded up to No. 10 overall in the 2019 draft in their attempts to find an off-ball linebacker worthy of the tradition of Shazier, James Farrior, Levon Kirkland and Jack Lambert.
All failed.
Queen will have to prove his worthiness for it on the field when it counts, of course. The first steps, he said, are assimilating into the Steelers’ scheme and becoming acclimated with the coaching staff and his partners in the defense. Veteran Elandon Roberts, Wilson and the currently rehabbing Cole Holcomb are Queen’s most likely running mates as ILBs in the middle of the Steelers defense.
“Right now I’m just working to get a feel for how things are done,” Queen said. “Communication, terminology, the way people play, how you feel next to them. Are you comfortable with what they’re comfortable with, and are they comfortable with what I am? You have to play off each other. It can be tough, but that’s why we have this time right now.”
