PITTSBURGH (AP) — Patrick Queen kept waiting for the Baltimore Ravens to make an offer to keep him around before the linebacker hit free agency last spring.
One never came. And yes, it hurt. More than Queen was expecting, if he's being honest.
“I wasn’t wanted back,” Queen said matter-of-factly on Wednesday, eight months after he left Baltimore for a fresh start with the Pittsburgh Steelers. "I didn’t get an offer back. But you know, it’s definitely kind of upsetting."
It wasn't until late summer — as the newness in Pittsburgh started to wear off and the bonds so vital to creating a team began to grow — that Queen finally made peace with it. That doesn't mean there won't be a few pangs on Sunday when Queen and the Steelers (7-2) host the Ravens (7-3) with first place in the AFC North at stake.
“I will have feelings, obviously anybody in my position would this week,” Queen said.
The goal will be to not let whatever is bubbling internally get in the way of Queen doing his job. The Steelers spent a franchise record to land Queen free agency, with the hope that Queen would shore up an inside linebacker position that's been a problem since Ryan Shazier's spinal injury late in the 2017 season ended his career.
The 25-year-old Queen started somewhat slowly before finding his footing in recent weeks, his No. 6 a blur as it makes the kind of “splash” plays that have long been a staple of one of the NFL's best defenses.
While Queen is still looking for his first sack in Pittsburgh, he has four tackles for loss and swatted down three passes. He's also a noticeable sideline-to-sideline presence, particularly against the running game. Good thing, because Lamar Jackson and the rest of Queen's former teammates will walk onto the Acrisure Stadium turf on Sunday afternoon with the league's top-ranked offense.
Though Jackson and company showed Queen his flowers when he signed in Pittsburgh — congratulating him for “securing the bag” in NFL parlance — he has temporarily cut off communication with his friends from his old gig, including running mate Roquan Smith.
The two formed one of the better linebacker duos in the league during their season-and-a-half together, though Queen admits one of the reasons he ultimately decided to come to Pittsburgh was to show that his production wasn't merely a byproduct of the outsized attention Smith, a two-time All-Pro, would receive from opponents.
While Queen didn't say he would have preferred to remain in Baltimore even if the Ravens had met him at the bargaining table, it's clear the relationships he cultivated through his four years with the team still mean a lot to him, and to have them severed — professionally anyway — stung.
“I definitely did feel a certain type of way, the whole situation,” said Queen, who noted he hasn't talked to Baltimore coach John Harbaugh since he left. “But I’m over it now.”
Why wouldn't he be? The Steelers are off to their best start since 2020 and Queen is only too happy to become the latest “villain" as Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin put it in a rivalry that has seen plenty through the years.
One of the things Queen is looking forward to the most is doing something off-limits to him when he was in Baltimore: hit Jackson. The best he could do during all those practice showdowns was get a single hand on him, and Queen laughingly admits even that was rare.
“We all know the type of athlete he is, how fast he is, how dynamic he is,” Queen said. “I would do my best to get in position to try and make a play.”
Something that hasn't been much of an issue for Pittsburgh when the Steelers have faced the two-time MVP. Pittsburgh is 3-1 against Jackson as a starter, allowing just four touchdown passes while picking him off seven times.
While Jackson is perhaps better than ever this season, he will be facing a defense that has succeeded where so many others have failed. It was hard for Queen not to notice when he was on the other side of the series.
“(They keep) everything simple, trying to get after him, not let him do what he does," Queen said.
It's an approach that worked well last week in Washington, where the Steelers kept Jayden Daniels in check long enough to pull out a 28-27 victory.
Yet that was the Commanders and a rookie quarterback, not the Ravens and one of the league's biggest stars, one Queen knows only too well.
The urge to trash-talk his good friends will probably come. It almost always does these days. There have been times when Queen admits he's said something he'd like to take back later, but only when he's playing someone he really doesn't like.
That won't be the case on Sunday when Queen sees his old friends in a new light for the first time. His lips will probably start moving before the opening kickoff and likely won't stop until the final gun. He apologizes for nothing.
“The older I got, the more I do it," he said. "It's just who I am now. I can’t control that. I can’t take it back. It's just me.”
And Queen is just a Steeler.
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Will Graves, The Associated Press
