Pride of Detroit
Detroit’s iron man in the middle of their offensive line prioritized health and family over anything else, and that’s as respectable a legacy one can leave behind.
When Frank Ragnow officially announced his retirement from football, it sparked a wave of speculation and opinion, particularly around why one of the NFL’s best centers would step away at just 29 years old. One report suggested that a new deal or more money could have kept Ragnow in the middle of Detroit’s vaunted offensive line. Another national report, following his retirement, claimed his contract had nothing to do with his absence from OTAs last week.
In a league often driven by financial bottom lines, Ragnow has always been a different kind of player. Blue-collar in attitude—and recreation. He represented everything the modern Lions have come to embody under Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes—grit, resilience, and accountability. The idea that he walked away due to dissatisfaction over a paycheck rings hollow. If anything, the Lions would’ve happily made him the highest-paid center again if that’s what it took to keep him playing football. But it wasn’t about what they were willing to give. It was about what he had left to give of himself.
Ragnow played through a staggering number of injuries during his career. A grueling, inoperable turf toe injury that’s been described as a particular kind of gnarly. A sprained knee and ankle suffered in the second quarter of the 2023 NFC Divisional Round against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t keep him from moving Vita Vea on fourth-and-1. A fractured throat—that resulted in his voice sounding wispy like a squeaker toy destroyed by a dog—didn’t stop him from playing all 67 snaps of a late-season tilt against the Green Bay Packers in 2020. Still, he returned nonetheless, to play a meaningless game in Week 17 against the Minnesota Vikings.
Each offseason seemed to bring another surgery, another question about whether he could return to one-hundred percent. And yet, every year, he showed up and gave Detroit everything he had because that’s who his parents—two of the “toughest people he’s ever met”—made him into.
“And I just take a lot of pride in being out there with the guys, being out there for the city,” Ragnow said after that second playoff victory during the 2023 season. “They signed me to this extension a few years ago, and I want to be fulfilling that. I don’t want to be that guy who gets paid and not doing that stuff. I want to be out there and finding a way to win.”
It’s easy to understand why fans struggle with this. We want to believe the greats can keep going—that if you just throw more guaranteed money at the problem, they’ll keep suiting up and gutting it out heads up against some of the meanest monsters in the league. And when he played an entire season of football after retirement rumors swirled and were subsequently squelched, we assumed Ragnow was healthy enough to keep...
