With Frank Ragnow’s sudden retirement, who should the Detroit Lions deploy at center?
Suddenly, the Detroit Lions find themselves without one of the most important players on their team. On Monday, center Frank Ragnow announced his retirement from the NFL, citing a need to prioritize his health and family and having given all he could physically to the game of football.
Not only was Ragnow arguably the best player at his position, but center is a lynchpin part of the offensive line. Ragnow was fantastically skilled as a physical and athletic player, but arguably his best asset was his mind. His ability to recognize pressure packages before the ball was snapped was absolutely essential to Detroit’s ability to keep Jared Goff clean over the last four years.
Now, the Lions must find his replacement.
The good news is that there are several in-house options both for the short and long term. So today’s Question of the Day is:
Who should be the Detroit Lions’ starting center?
My answer: I think it’s pretty likely that Tate Ratledge is being groomed to be the long-term replacement. I kept finding it more and more curious that Ratledge was continuing to get the majority of his reps at center during both rookie minicamp and OTAs. At minicamp, it made sense because there weren’t that many center candidates. But in OTAs, when Graham Glasgow, Kingsley Eguakun, and Michael Niese were on the field, it didn’t make much sense for Ratledge to get the high majority of his reps at center if Ragnow was the long-term plan there, and Ratledge would play guard. Of course, it all makes perfect sense now.
The question is whether it makes sense to start Ratledge there in 2025. Detroit has a perfectly good center in Glasgow, and that could be just the person to learn the ropes from. In the meantime, Ratledge can play right guard—where he’s played the majority of his college ball.
In fact, this would coincidentally mirror what the Lions ended up doing with Ragnow back in 2018. With Glasgow already cemented at center back then, Ragnow played left guard his rookie season before jumping to center in Year 2. The only difference was that Ragnow was a college center while Ratledge was a guard.
I think this route makes the most sense for Ratledge, but I am not counting him out as a rookie starter at center. The Lions certainly seem to be practicing him there a lot, and it’s possible he’s shown signs of picking it up quickly. If that’s the case, there’s an argument to just put him there as quickly as possible to help him grow the quickest. But with so much on the line in 2025, I think it makes most sense to put the seasoned veteran at center—one of the most critical positions in football.
How do you think the Lions should approach the center position in 2025 and beyond? Share your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of the page.
