Patrick Queen revenge game with Steelers is biting with no teeth

One of the biggest games of a loaded Week 11 slate across the NFL comes in the AFC North, where the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers renew their fierce rivalry at Heinz Field. There's a ton on the line here, from division supremacy to playoff positioning to good, old-fashioned bragging rights. As if that weren't motivation enough already, Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen has something more personal at stake: The Ravens didn't make much of an effort to keep him around as a free agent a few months ago, and he wants everyone to know that he remembers.

"I wasn't wanted back," Queen told reporters on Wednesday. "It's definitely kind of upsetting, being there for four years, the bond that you grow with your teammates. At the end of the day, the first few months, you definitely go through those feelings."

Queen's certainly more than justified to take it personally. For as much as everyone loves to talk about how the NFL is strictly business, there are a lot of relationships that go into four years in the same organization, and it's bound to hurt when that same organization decides it can do better elsewhere. You can't blame a player for carrying that with them, and for wanting to prove their old team wrong.

There's just one problem, though: Queen needs to focus less on talking about proving the Ravens wrong and more on actually proving the Ravens wrong, because he hasn't done a very good job of the latter so far in his first season with Pittsburgh.

Patrick Queen isn't making the Ravens regret their decision

The Steelers defense has helped propel the team to a surprising 7-2 start this season. But their new linebacker hasn't been much help: Per PFF, Queen ranks just 72nd out of 83rd qualified linebackers so far this year, drawing below-average marks against both the run and the pass. He's looked a whole lot like the player whose fifth-year option Baltimore declined after the 2022 season, and not much at all like the player who made his first career Pro Bowl in 2023.

Which was the main reason why the Ravens weren't sold on investing in Queen long-term. He had exactly one year of great production, and it was never clear how much to credit him for that as opposed to All-Pro running mate Roquan Smith. Smith's freakish athleticism made Queen's life a whole lot easier on a number of occasions, and without that sort of help in Pittsburgh, he's reverted back to the player who looked like a draft bust over the first couple years of his career.

Of course, none of that will matter much to Queen if Pittsburgh gets a win on Sunday. But for as much as he's talking up this matchup, it's clear that the Ravens aren't thinking about him at all.