Trade candidate: Ravens LB Patrick Queen

For three years, Queen was part of a stout LSU defense. He didn’t find much playing time in his first two seasons with the Tigers, working behind future Pro Bowler Devin White. In his junior season, though, Queen finally found significant time on the field, starting 11-of-15 games in the team’s National Championship season and winning defensive MVP honors during the program's title-game win over Clemson. Despite only having started 16-of-41 career collegiate games, Queen opted to forgo his senior year at LSU and enter the 2020 NFL Draft.

While Queen ended up as the fourth inside linebacker drafted in the first round that year, at this point, he may be the most successful of the bunch. All four first-round picks from that year had their fifth-year options declined and while Jordyn Brooks has had some highly-productive seasons in Seattle, the back half of Queen’s 2022 season may be the best linebacker play we’ve seen out of that draft class so far.

Queen hit the ground running in Baltimore, starting every game of his NFL career so far. In his first two seasons of professional play, Queen put up the numbers that a starting inside linebacker should. Over his first 33 games, he collected 204 total tackles, five sacks, 19 tackles for loss, 13 quarterback hits, three forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries (one for a touchdown), three passes defensed and an interception.

Despite lighting up all the different areas of the stat sheet, analytics failed to see the hype of Queen as a top linebacker. According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), the young linebacker ranked 82nd out of 83 ranked players at his position during his rookie year and 71-of-86 in his sophomore season.

Queen had a bit of a breakout year in 2022. He posted career-highs in total tackles (117), sacks (5.0), quarterback hits (14), passes defensed (6) and interceptions (2). Analytically, he also slotted in as PFF’s 31st-best linebacker, a significant improvement over previous years. It wasn’t just the increased experience and finally adjusting to the speed of the game at the NFL level that led to this breakout. The midseason acquisition of first-team All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith paid huge dividends towards Queen’s improvement.

Smith’s addition affected Queen’s situation in more ways than just on the field improvement. At the conclusion of the season, a big-money extension to Smith, the newcomer in Baltimore, made it clear where the Ravens’ priorities lie at linebacker. While they were surely happy to see the improvement from Queen throughout his third season in the league, he hadn’t shown enough in his first three years to warrant a fifth-year option and in the meantime, the Ravens were getting cozy long-term with Smith.

Early reports indicated that Queen could find himself on the trade block leading up to the 2023 NFL Draft. When nothing came of those rumors, it was reported that Baltimore had hopes of extending Queen. While that’s a nice sentiment, it’s not common to see two off-ball linebacker get paid big money. With Smith’s new contract averaging $20M per year, paying Queen top dollar is just not feasible.

Queen himself spoke on the situation and claimed that he hopes to remain with the team for an extended period. In order to do that, though, Queen likely will have to take less money than he’s likely looking for in his second contract. In an ideal world, Queen’s second contract could approach $8M-$9M per year. But considering the Ravens' recent deals, I think Queen would be lucky to get around $7M. The Ravens may be able to offer something around a three-year, $20M deal or a four-year, $25M extension, but is that a deal Queen would consider?

Likely, Queen would see the vast improvement he made in Year 3 and opt to bet on himself in a contract year. He may see that he is pricing his way out of Baltimore like many Ravens defenders before him. If that’s the case, the Ravens, seeing the writing on the wall that they may be losing Queen regardless, could decide that they want to get something in return for Queen, as opposed to nothing.

If the two sides can’t reach common ground in extension negotiations, Baltimore could opt to trade their former first-round pick away for draft compensation. The move would also clear approximately $2.27M of cap space, according to OvertheCap.com. It’s not the ideal scenario for either side, but both parties are going to feel they have leverage in this negotiation. Queen, having just completed the best season of his career, will want to get paid for his best football. The Ravens, on the other hand, secured one of the league’s best linebackers to a five-year deal and drafted Clemson's Trenton Simpson in the third round of this year’s draft. Obviously, Simpson is an unproven commodity, but if he can slot in successfully next to Smith, Queen may become superfluous.

So, that’s the situation. Queen and the Ravens both appear interested in a long-term relationship that keeps Queen alongside Smith in Baltimore. The Ravens, likely anticipating the desires of their top 2020 draft pick, have bolstered themselves with Smith and Simpson. If Queen decides to draw a line on his worth that the Ravens can’t reach, the team may be forced to move on from the ascending, young player and seek compensation for someone they would eventually lose for nothing.