Steelers Now
Former Pittsburgh Steelers free safety Ryan Clark peeled back the curtain on a key detail that Steelers’ assistant coach and secondary coach Joe Whitt Jr. shared with him.
“You have to get better play from the linebacker position. I know PG [Patrick Graham] is gonna have to figure that out from the defensive coordinator standpoint,” Clark said Monday on The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny. “Joe Whitt Jr., who’s now the actual — he’s the assistant head coach — and those are conversations I’ve had with him.
“I’ve had conversations with him about how do you fix the second level of this defense? That’s extremely important.”
The Steelers inside linebacker position was tabbed as the biggest weakness by ESPN heading into the 2026 season. There’s no doubt about it, the Steelers need more from Patrick Queen and Payton Wilson.
Queen hasn’t necessarily lived up to his three-year, $41 million deal that he signed with the Steelers in March of 2024. Wilson also has to be better against the run.
“Off-ball linebacker. Patrick Queen and Payton Wilson are back as the starters, and that might not be a good thing after Pittsburgh ranked 27th in run stop win rate (28.9%) last season,” Mike Clay of ESPN wrote. “Queen remained an every-down player last season but slipped to 61st among 67 qualified off-ball linebackers in PFF grade (he ranked 54th among 69 qualified in 2024). Wilson could make a Year 3 leap, though he struggled to fend off Cole Holcomb and Malik Harrison, who both remain on the roster, for snaps last season.”
Queen stacked up 126 total tackles last season, second on the team only to Payton Wilson. Queen was linked to the Dallas Cowboys in trade rumors earlier this offseason, but Jerry Jones’ team wound up acquiring Dee Winters from the San Francisco 49ers.
“Some of it was true, some it was just extended truth,” Queen said. “Just people rambling and stuff. That’s what you’re gonna have with social media nowadays, everybody wants the first say-so of whatever happens and they wanna hope to be right. But (there) was very slim facts out there, and that’s all I’ll leave it at.”
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Ryan Clark Reveals Key Detail Steelers Coach Shared with Him: ‘Extremely Important’
