"One man's trash is another man's treasure," Mike Tomlin said Sunday of Patrick Queen. "I'm glad he's on our team."
Tomlin said that just minutes after his team beat the Steelers' archrival Ravens, 18-16, to improve to 8-2. Nobody is probably happier that the revenge game against the Ravens is over more than Queen himself. But, man, he showed everyone in Pittsburgh why he was brought here.
Yeah, having a guy make plays for the team instead of against the team is nice. But, it's icing on the cake. Queen wasn't signed just to stick it to Baltimore. He was signed because he's a former second-team All-Pro and can make all kinds of plays in the middle of the Steelers' defense.
And, Queen turned in arguably his best performance of the season against his former team. Queen racked up a team-high 10 tackles, one tackle for loss and forced a fumble, which he also recovered himself. That's a heck of a day on the stat sheet.
But, sometimes box scores can be misleading. What did the tape look like? And, after going through the tape a few times, I'm confident in saying this was exactly how Queen was advertised. He was all over the place, flew to the football, looked great in coverage and was more than active in run defense.
This is just a taste of what Queen's day looked like. It wasn't perfect, and there were some not-so-good reps I didn't include, but this week's Chalk Talk is centered on the plays that highlighted the type of performance he had:
Now you can see why nobody on the South Side was concerned about Queen's play during the first few weeks of the season. They all knew this playmaker was there. But, as it was with so many players, there's an acclimation period. Queen's beyond that now.
Queen is also putting up the numbers you'd expect. He's now the team leader with 72 tackles on the season, and has also totaled five tackles for loss, three passes defensed, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery and one quarterback hit. He's on pace for 121 tackles, which would be the most a linebacker has recorded for the Steelers since Lawrence Timmons in 2014.
Sure, you'd probably like to see Queen end up with an interception or two, maybe a sack or two and wind up with a couple more forced fumbles. There are still seven games to go, along with any potential playoff games. But, Queen's been looking better and better in recent weeks, with standout games against the Raiders and Commanders, too.
Queen knows there will be games like Sunday and other games that don't go his way. But, his approach to it all shows why he's always capable of turning in days like Sunday.
"You dream about plays, and some days they don't happen," Queen said after Sunday's game. "Everybody today was like you're going to get one. This was my dad's birthday too, he was like you've got to get me one. It's just crazy how things work out, though. Knowing I had to come out here and support my team and play as hard as I can for them and just do my job."
Queen did his job, alright. He played exactly like the player we all expected him to be. And that's quickly becoming the norm.
