Nobody saw this coming. As the National Football League continues to slowly release its rankings of the NFL Top 100 players of 2025, a Pittsburgh Steelers player made the list at No. 75, but it's a player that wasn't even on anyone's radar; it was veteran linebacker Patrick Queen.
Queen was signed by the Steelers as an unrestricted free agent during the 2024 offseason, and he played his first season in Pittsburgh last year. The best way to describe his performance was 'up and down'.
The speedster led the team in tackles while making some spectacular plays behind the line of scrimmage and dislodging the football twice, but nobody thought for a second that his performance warranted a spot on the NFL Top 100 list entering the 2025 season.
Queen made the Pro Bowl for his second straight season, but there's a better debate as to whether he's even the top linebacker on the team, let alone a top 100 player in the National Football League.
Pittsburgh Steelers LB Patrick Queen doesn't deserve a spot on the NFL Top 100 list
I give credit where credit is due... but I'll also give criticism when it is called for. With so many deserving players around the league that won't crack this year's NFL Top 100 list, it's baffling to understand why Patrick Queen just did.
Let's take a minute to dissect his performance in 2024, and you'll see why Queen should have never even been a candidate for this list.
In his first season with the Steelers, Queen played and started all 17 games. During this time, he allowed 561 yards in coverage and four passing touchdowns while surrendering a 114.0 passer rating to opposing quarterbacks. This lines up with the struggles we saw in coverage on film.
While Queen had a respectable missed tackle rate of 6.5 percent, he was truly a liability for the Steelers in coverage last season. Despite being targeted 76 times, he recorded just seven passes defended and failed to come down with an interception.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg that makes Queen an unworthy candidate for this prestigious list.
Though he recorded a whopping 1,090 defensive snaps in 2024 with the Steelers, the veteran linebacker came away with just one sack and six tackles for a loss, both career lows in these respective departments. Likewise, Queen was involved in just three turnover-worthy plays all season despite being a full-time starting defender.
Furthermore, Queen earned an overall PFF grade of just 56.8, which ranked 65th among all qualifying NFL linebackers last season. This included a 53.1 run defense grade and a 54.3 coverage grade. Quite frankly, 2024 rookie linebacker Payton Wilson was better in both run defense and in coverage while creating significantly more splash plays on less than half the number of snaps.
In comparison, Wilson recorded a pick, allowed just 5.5 yards per target in coverage, and gave up an opposing passer rating of just 79.0. For his efforts, the rookie earned a 74.0 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, which was good for 17th among all NFL linebackers. Likewise, Elandon Roberts—who's now on the Raiders—proved to be an elite run defender last season and graded out as the 8th-best linebacker in football.
When we see Patrick Queen ranking higher than players like Dak Prescott, Trent McDuffie, Christian Gonzalez, Zach Allen, Quinnen Williams, and even All-Pro teammate Cameron Heyward (who came in at No. 83 on the list), it's safe to say that the players who voted on these rankings got it wrong.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have just a few elite players on the roster, and Patrick Queen is not one of them.