DeShon Elliott knows the Steelers didn’t see the best of Patrick Queen last season, the first year of a big free-agent contract. Though it doesn’t look too out of character on stat sheet, Queen is the first to admit it. But Elliott has been around him long enough to know just what Queen thinks about his performance.
“The player that he’s capable of being, he didn’t play up to his standards”, Elliott told Brian Batko of Queen. “Being one of my really good friends, both in our first year in the defense — it’s not something I’m trying to blame it on, but throughout the season, you grow, and there are growing pains”.
The Ravens selected Patrick Queen in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He didn’t fully mature until his third season, earning All-Pro honors in 2023 in Year 4. They elected to move on from him, however, the Steelers pouncing on the opportunity to sign him.
Queen recorded 129 tackles with six for loss, a sack, an interception, and a forced fumble, with seven passes defensed. On the surface, that all sounds pretty good, but the tape tells a different story. While he didn’t play poorly, he didn’t have the type of impact the Steelers signed him to have.
“I know he’ll be better this year, for sure. There’s nothing really negative you can say about it”, DeShon Elliott said of Queen. And it’s reasonable to assume he will be much more comfortable this year, for many reasons. Just one among them is that he now has a year of wearing the green dot under his belt.
Patrick Queen readily admitted that last year “wasn’t the season I wanted”, according to Batko. “You could blame it on a whole new system and all that other stuff, but at the end of the day, I’m a professional football player. That was Year 5. So, I think I should’ve been a little more well-prepared for that. I definitely take all accountability for that”.
The Steelers signed both DeShon Elliott and Patrick Queen as free agents last year, former Ravens together. They are now a key part of Pittsburgh’s defensive nucleus, at least for the next two years. Queen still has two years left on his deal, and Elliott just signed an extension, with a pay raise.
Elliott had a better, more consistent first season with the Steelers than did Queen. But Elliott played next to a Pro Bowler in Minkah Fitzpatrick, while Queen played with a rookie. Payton Wilson’s second-year emergence should also help Queen plenty this season, on top of everything else.
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