Pro Football Rumors
A little over a year ago, Lions center Frank Ragnow made one of the hardest decisions an NFL player can make, opting to hang up his cleats before the age of 30 for the sake of his health. When a rash of injuries spread across Detroit’s offensive line midway through the season, the then-29-year-old tried — and failed — to make a comeback. According to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, another comeback attempt isn’t likely to occur.
Following an injury that had led to Ragnow missing all but four games in 2021, the Arkansas-product rebounded to play at least 15 games in each of the next three seasons, which delivered his second, third, and fourth Pro Bowl nods and his second and third second-team All-American campaigns.Still, in his final season with the Lions, Ragnow played through a pectoral injury that underlined the health struggles that he had been dealing with.
After missing last year’s Organized Team Activities as he mulled over the decision of his future, Ragnow announced that he was “officially retiring,” claiming that, even though he tried to convince himself that he felt good and still had something left in the tank, he just didn’t. When his successor, Graham Glasgow, became the latest of several starters on the team’s offensive line last year to go down with an injury, Ragnow proved just how hard his retirement decision had been as he attempted to unretire to help his team.
In the end, a Grade 3 hamstring sprain found in Ragnow’s physical prevented him from returning. As the season was coming to an end, Lions quarterback Jared Goff was asked about his former center’s chances of taking another stab at coming back. Goff told the media that he didn’t think it was “in the cards” as Ragnow’s “interest level” just wasn’t there anymore. Per Birkett, Ragnow claimed to feel guilty about his decision to retire, but after the failed comeback, he has “closed the door on a possible return.”
“To shoot it to you straight,” he began to reporters, “I was trying to will myself to play. I was. And my body was telling me otherwise, and I was just in, like, paralysis, if you will. I did not plan on retiring in the middle of the summer, believe it or not. It was like I was trying to get like, ‘You can do it for the guys, for the fans, it’s who you are,’ but it’s just, like, I was uncomfortable.”
Ragnow’s guilt stemmed partially from the fact that he tried to “avoid games” early into his retirement as he tried to distract himself. When the Lions got off to a rough start for the year and injuries and inconsistency along the offensive line led to Goff getting sacked a career-high number of times, he blamed himself and the butterfly effects from his absence.
“I felt guilt,” Ragnow said. *“Like Jared’s getting hit. That’s my guy. Those are my guys, and they’re struggling. And then I made...
