PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Patrick Queen spends much of his offseason with a line out, sitting in a boat on a lake full of bass.

His passion gives him plenty of time to think, but that’s not where or when he reflects on his first season with the Steelers. Queen wasn’t happy with his performance, the team’s outcome or himself. When he’s fishing, though, he’s doing it to get away from football, the good and the bad.

“For me, personally, I think I could have expectations and surpass them, and I’d still be upset that I didn’t do more,” Queen said. “I’m always going to be searching and looking for more that I can do, trying to be the best player I can be for my team and for myself. I didn’t do that last year. That’s what really aggravated me this whole offseason.”

When Queen gets on the water, the frustration fades away, and he’s in his element.

Whether he’s the best at it on the team is a matter of debate, though. One of the big fellas in front of Queen responsible for keeping him clean so he can go make tackles fancies himself an elite angler, as well.

“PQ — and I’m gonna tell him to his face, too — he’s more of one of those Instagram fishermen,” Keeanu Benton said with a grin. “I do my stuff in the dark. But I catch ’em. I get to it.”

Just some friendly fishing trash talk among teammates, but Queen would likely shake his head at that. And rightfully so.

SERIOUS FISHING INTEREST

He’s so serious about the craft that he opened his own bait and tackle shop this spring in his hometown of New Roads, La., 40 minutes from Baton Rouge. Patrick Queen’s All Pro Fishing & Tackle is a little more than a month old now and a convenient brick-and-mortar spot for communities that are about an hour from the nearest Bass Pro Shop or Cabela’s.

“I think I’m shopping there more than anybody else, taking my own stuff,” Queen smiled. “But, man, I don’t even care about the making money part. Me and my friends always talked about needing a store out there.”

Queen wants to add hunting gear once the summer ends. And he wants to get back to hunting opposing offenses when the fall begins.

His stat line wasn’t bad at all. He led the Steelers with 129 tackles, was second behind DeShon Elliott with 65 solo stops, and added 7 pass breakups, 6 tackles for loss, 5 quarterback hits, 2 forced fumbles, a sack and a fumble recovery. In the end, he even made the Pro Bowl as an injury alternate, but it wasn’t enough for Queen coming off his first All-Pro season in 2023 with Baltimore.

“It wasn’t the season I wanted,” said Queen, who thinks he could’ve had six interceptions. “Just because I didn’t play the type of football I wanted to. You could blame it on a whole new system and all that other stuff, but at the end of the day, I’m a professional football player. That was Year 5. So, I think I should’ve been a little more well-prepared for that. I definitely take all accountability for that.”

Queen means he wasn’t mentally ready the way he should’ve been. But part of that, he believes, was not having his body in the best shape either. While he doesn’t turn 26 until August, he’s already got 90 games (89 starts) and 5,269 defensive snaps to his name in the NFL.

Those are adding up, and Queen even admits it has taken a toll. He tried to keep it vague, because he knows everyone deals with aches and pains throughout a season, but the details were an elbow bruise, tailbone bruise, knee bruise, thigh contusion and, to top it all off, the flu or food poisoning or something the morning he woke up for the playoff game against his old team.

“Being able to go through that process of being at the top of my game and then going down, it kind of fuels you even more to get back to your old self,” Queen said.

But one fellow Steelers defender who has seen Queen’s development firsthand sounds far more optimistic than disappointed. Elliott shrugged off any notion that Queen lost a step from the 20-year-old first-round pick he first met with the Ravens in 2020.

Elliott, fresh off a two-year contract extension himself, considered linking back up with Queen a major reason why he signed here in the first place last March. Now both have attained their most lucrative NFL deals in Pittsburgh and will be key cogs up the middle of the Steelers defense.

“The player that he’s capable of being, he didn’t play up to his standards,” Elliott said. “Being one of my really good friends, both in our first year in the defense — it’s not something I’m trying to blame it on, but throughout the season, you grow, and there are growing pains. … I know he’ll be better this year, for sure. There’s nothing really negative you can say about it.”

As tight as those two are, though, you won’t find Elliott in rural Louisiana cruising around with Queen. Sure, Queen tries to get his pal to go with him, but … “I don’t do the swamps, bro,” Elliott said. “He’s real country.”

‘PROBABLY ON THE BOAT’

Even when another former Ravens linebacker signed with the Steelers a few months ago, Malik Harrison joked that Queen was “probably on the boat” when they discussed a potential reunion with an old AFC North rival. Anyone who knows Queen knows he’s got a go-to hobby.

Whether it’s football or fishing, Queen is in near-constant pursuit of the trophy. He’s got a rod in hand at least three or four days a week in the offseason once he returns to Louisiana.

Queen’s typical ritual back home is a two-hour workout starting around 10:30 in the morning, go take a nap, then head out to see what he can catch for the rest of the day until 10 or 10:30 p.m. Maybe he’ll go looking for some little guys in brush piles at his local lake. Oftentimes he’ll make the three-hour drive to Bussey Brake or Caney Creek, reservoirs where the water’s like glass and you’re liable to snag a 10-pound bass with any cast.

He has two boats at his disposal now and would like to have a third with him in Western Pennsylvania. That would allow him to make the occasional trek to Lake Erie, where Benton already has struck gold. Those two have even mentioned going in on a boat together, although Benton recently bought one from legendary Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas, as those two are both proud Wisconsin alumni.

Queen said when his NFL career ends someday, he’ll be “way more advanced” in his other sport. He’s already competed in some pro-am Bassmaster events and has friends who participate in night tournaments, which are a no-go for him given his training schedule. For now, it’s more therapeutic than anything when Queen is motoring around or reeling one in.

“I’m not thinking about football at all. When I’m on the boat, it’s just strictly fishing,” Queen said. “Because this game is my life. If I’m not playing a video game or fishing, I’m strictly thinking about football. I could be watching TV, and I’m gonna start thinking about football. It’s that bad. I’ve got to be actually doing something to take my mind off it.”

Queen wants his bite back when he’s on the field, and when he’s not, he just wants a bite.