The Pittsburgh Steelers have spent years trying to stabilize the middle of their defense, and Patrick Queen was supposed to be the answer. He arrived with speed, pedigree, and the kind of résumé that made sense for a team tired of struggling through linebacker patchwork.
On paper, Queen has delivered the dependable part. Since coming to the Steel City, he hasn't missed a start. He opened his Steelers tenure by starting all 17 games and leading the team with 129 tackles, while also adding seven passes defended, six tackles for loss, five quarterback hits, two forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery.
That tackle total was one of the better single-season marks by a Steelers defender in the modern era, and it reflected just how central he immediately became to the defense.
He followed that with another full season as a starter in 2025, recording 120 more tackles, a sack, four passes defended, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. In total, Queen has recorded 249 tackles. At a position where the Steelers have been burned by injuries and inconsistency, that availability has value.
The concern is what Pittsburgh is attaching to that availability. Queen isn’t being treated like a useful piece, but as one of the central fixes for a defense that needs to be more physical, stout against the run, and less vulnerable in the middle of the field.
Patrick Queen’s every-down role is becoming harder for the Pittsburgh Steelers to defend
Queen has rarely come off the field, but playing every snap and controlling every snap are two different things. The Steelers haven’t lacked activity from Queen; they’ve lacked consistent impact.
The grading backs up the uneasiness. Queen remained an every-down linebacker, yet he finished 78th among 88 qualified linebackers in PFF grade last season. That kind of ranking doesn’t automatically erase his tackle totals, but it does put them in better perspective. Tackles can pile up when a linebacker is constantly involved. But it's whether those plays are happening on Pittsburgh’s terms.
That’s where the run defense enters the chat. Pittsburgh ranked No. 27 in run stop win rate at 29% last season. A defense with T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, and the Steelers’ usual investment up front shouldn’t be living that low in a category tied to control and physicality.
Queen doesn’t own that number by himself. Defensive line play, fits, safety support, and scheme all feed into it. But the problem is that an every-down inside linebacker sits right in the middle of those breakdowns, and if the Steelers are asking Queen to be the stabilizer, they need more than volume.
Queen looks the part, plays every week, and produces numbers that sound impressive at first glance. Then the defense gets gashed on the ground, the grades drag behind, and the same issue keeps popping up: Pittsburgh may have found a linebacker who’s always available, but it hasn’t proven it found one who can fix what keeps breaking.
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