The Baltimore Ravens are headed to the Divisional Round of the AFC playoffs. The Pittsburgh Steelers are headed home. To the winner go the spoils and though the Ravens took their lumps against Pittsburgh in their first meeting back in Week 11, they course corrected and look like one of the NFL’s hottest teams. The Steelers are the coldest, allowing Ravens LB Roquan Smith to suggest Patrick Queen go somewhere tropical and warm up.
“I think I remember my guy PQ saying I think the last time we played them it was a hat and T-shirt [game]. I guess he gets the T-shirt he got on and he’ll be in Cabo somewhere,” Smith said via beat reporter Morgan Adsit.
Smith is referring to the “hat and T-shirt” Pittsburgh was playing for in the Week 16 rematch. A Steelers’ victory would’ve clinched them the AFC North for the first time since 2020. Instead, the Ravens got revenge in a 34-17 win to keep the division doors open. As Pittsburgh continued to stumble, Baltimore excelled, and it clinched the division in the regular-season finale.
Patrick Queen left the Ravens after four years in Baltimore feeling spurned by the lack of a contract offer and likely by the team trading for and paying Smith instead. It made staying in the AFC North important for Queen, who signed a three-year deal to become the highest-paid external free agent in Steelers history.
Billed as the team’s three-down linebacker, he faithfully served that role this season. His play was mixed, flashing in the first game against the Ravens and cleaning up his early-season missed tackles problem. But communication breakdowns occurred all around him during a bulk of the Steelers’ five-game losing streak even if they were largely repaired for the final two games.
Now, Queen’s former team is advancing. His current one is figuring out how to pick up the pieces.
“He’s still my guy. Much love,” Smith said of Queen.
When Queen first signed, there was fun back and forth between him and his former teammates. But offseason chatter merely serves as fodder. What happens in January and February is loudest. Right now, the Steelers and Ravens’ play speak volumes in opposite directions.
