DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Patrick Queen’s rebound

DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Patrick Queen’s rebound

[Music] Is there any player will be reporting to St. Vincent College a week from today who will have a bigger room to rebound in the coming season than Patrick Queen. Good morning to you. Good Wednesday morning. I’m Dan Katovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Steelers. that comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into hockey and/or baseball. I also offer daily shots of Penguins and Pirates that I hope you’ll check out as well. PQ, as I’ll call him, since that’s actually what I call him and what everybody calls him, was a Pro Bowl inside linebacker for your Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2024 season, the first season that he spent here. And if you look at his statistical comparisons between his 2023 in Baltimore and what he did with the Steelers, you’re not going to see that much daylight. Started and played all 17 games. 133 tackles with the Ravens, 129 with the Steelers, nine tackles for loss with the Ravens, six with the Steelers. Okay, that’s a little different. Six quarterback hits with the Ravens, five with the Steelers, one forced fumble with the Ravens, two with the Steelers, one fumble recovery each with the Ravens and the Steelers. Six passes defensed with the Ravens. Seven with the Steelers. And wait, here’s one that’s going to blow your mind. I promise. He had 14 missed tackles with the Ravens, nine with the Steelers. And yet you and I and even he will acknowledge he wasn’t himself in 2024. And part of the reason for that is probably the very same thing you’re thinking right now, which is that early on he missed some tackles, routine runs. Guys just went right through him and it didn’t look good. And it was a first impression. and first impressions can really stick both in football and in life. What’s more, and I’ll say this because he wouldn’t, dude laid it all out there. There was no holding back about how he would feel about his own performances following a given game. The one that stands out for me in this regard was out in Las Vegas. And I mean this one in a positive way. Uh he had game high 13 tackles, four more than he’d had in any other game to that point. And this was the sixth game of the season for the Steelers, a 32-13 victory over the Raiders. There were six solo tackles in there. One of them was a TFL. He just looked like he was overall finally comfortable with the defense and he said so. He and I make a habit of speaking after every game. And in in Las Vegas in particular, we made eye contact and he said, “See, that’s the one I’ve been waiting for.” And yet to swing back, if you combine the way the entire defense couldn’t stop anybody over those final four games, plus the playoff game in Baltimore, plus the unsightly visual of seeing his old compadre, Rocoan Smith, on the other side just being Roan and reminding everybody of the consistent charge that the only reason that Queen was any good with the Ravens was because he was playing with Rocoan. It’s all become really a perceived negative. And what’s impressed me the most about PQ is that he’s never run from that. He’s never said, “Hey, hang on a second. You know that my numbers actually might have been even a little bit better in Pittsburgh than they were in Baltimore. And by the way, you know, I I was invited to the Pro Bowl.” He’s never done that. And he didn’t do that when he and I spoke at mini camp. Here’s a little bit of the conversation that we had and and I brought up, as I would always do with him, the green dot, because that was his big challenge in coming to Pittsburgh, not just that he was going to play a certain starting spot in the middle of the field, but that he was going to be calling the defense. Check it out. Can you imagine how different this season will be for you without having to go through the whole green dot thing again? Oh, man. You and I talked about all last season. like, “Oh, yeah, but I’m still like and I remember you in Las Vegas telling me like it’s still I’m still working on it and whatever.” But now you’ve been here. Yeah, it’s like second nature now. I mean, I I freaking put my helmet on and I just hear them talking like they pull back to it. So, um I think that whole year to get used to a new defense, get used to being a single caller. Um just all that stuff that’s out the window now. Just more time for me to show up every single down, every single game. I think all that stuff’s in the past. No more excuses. Um I just got to be positive. Just play football. Yeah, just play football. That’s is that’s something see what I mean? Didn’t didn’t uh even palpably cringe at any of the stuff that I was asking. It was just I know what everybody thinks. I know what you think. I’m whatever. I I I thought a lot of the same stuff. I’m going to be better. Well, here’s what I have to add to that today. I thought a lot of Patrick Queen when he was in Baltimore, and I’m excited for what he can do now that he has gotten past the early phase, then the green dot phase, then the oh my god, everything’s falling apart phase, which is what happened to all of them down that stretch. As you heard me say to him, just play football. Just go out there and play football. That’s what this is going to be about. This guy can really do that. And if the rest of this defense, in particular, the upgrade guys, Derek Harmon up front, YA Black up front, Jaylen Ramsay possibly at slot corner, people that are right around him, a healthy Cole Hulcom assisting both in coverage and sideline to sideline chasing, a year two Payton Wilson. All of that can help to make PQ that much better within this defense. Does he need to bounce back from something? I don’t know, but I do know that I would welcome it regardless when we come back to you on Q. This segment of Daily Shot is brought to you by our good friends at Mike’s Beer Bar. They’re located on Federal Street, directly across from PNC Park. Mike has more than 500 beers on tap, including from more than 50 local breweries. Stop in and say hello. Tell Mike we sent you. Mike’s Beer Bar. [Music] Today’s J1 Q is more of a rebuttal than it is an actual question. But one of the things that I like to bring up every now and then is I don’t want to be the guy who comes across like I’m always right and everybody else is wrong or I got to have the last word or whatever. Today you’re going to have the last word. On yesterday’s program, I answered a J1Q about my feeling on the state of the defense from a schematic perspective, specifically as it relates to the coaching of Mike Tomlin and Terrell Austin and whether or not their work had given me pause. And I responded by saying it, I was way beyond giving me pause. And I then said that I don’t believe that the Steelers defense has outcoached anybody since Dick Leau was here. Well, Rick has something back to say. I have to disagree with you, DK, regarding your comment that the defense hasn’t out coached anybody since Leau. Recency bias erases all memory of our repeated success versus Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. Baltimore has the most dangerous quarterback and the most unusual offense in the NFL. And yet, while no one else has been able to control the Ravens, the Steelers won seven of eight games meetings between the two over a four-year span. This isn’t luck or just talented players. The proof that it’s also coaching is that other teams were trying to use that scheme against the Ravens. Further evidence is that when the coaches tried a different scheme in January, they beat us. Ergo, what worked best was the original defense that these coaches devised and other teams have tried to copy. That is proof of good coaching. And Rick, even though I have a lot to say back to this, I’m going to offer proof that I don’t always have to have the last word and that I’m not always right. So, I’m just going to leave it right there. Then thank you for the counter and express appreciation to everybody for listening to Daily Shot of Steelers. Don’t forget that we have a double shot coming up today at 400 p.m. Eastern on our YouTube channel and of course on our own happen website at DK Pittsburgh Sports. It is killing me to not respond to this, but I’m not going to. Hope to see you guys this afternoon. [Music] with it.

Let’s get real about Patrick Queen’s bounceback.

#Pittsburgh #Steelers #HereWeGo #NFL #DKPS

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