Almost exactly a year ago, after the Detroit Lions lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, center Frank Ragnow was left to take a full accounting of the litany of injuries he dealt with over the course of the season (toe, calf, back, knee, knee/ankle). Reading the ailments he was listed with on practice reports often required taking a breath.
"I got to figure everything out," Ragnow said after the NFC Championship Game loss. "We landed at 5 a.m. (after the 49ers game) and now I’m just trying to process everything and take a look at my body and my MRIs and figure everything out."
"It takes a toll on you,” Ragnow said. “It really takes a toll on you, so I need to find a way to get back to Frank and I don’t regret any of this at all, but it weighs on you and I’m just going to take some time and really figure everything out to make sure that I’m feeling good, not only for me the football player but for me to be the best husband and best father and everything with that as well.”
Those words fueled some retirement speculation around Ragnow, which he quickly and definitively put to bed.
Ragnow's toughness can never be questioned. He once played most of a game with a fractured throat in 2020, and he only missed two games afterward. This season, a torn pectoral cost him just one game. A lingering toe issue is something he'll manage for the rest of his career.
It's fair to say the injuries he has dealt with will shave some time off the end of Ragnow's career. But he is one of the best centers in the NFL, and he's not leaving that tier of his peers anytime soon.
Frank Ragnow made bold declaration going into the offseason
Other than around the game he missed (Week 4 against the Seattle Seahawks), Ragnow was rarely on the injury report for the Lions this season. There were rest days built in to his practice schedule as it got late in the season, but a listing with any kind of injury was rare outside of the torn pectoral.
That seems like a great sign for Ragnow heading into the offseason. It appears there are no surgeries or rest/rehab on the agenda for him, which he more or less confirmed the day the Lions' cleaned out their lockers after the playoff loss to Washington.
""Comparatively, I'm healthier than I've ever been," Ragnow said on Jan. 19, according to Richard Silva of The Detroit News. "That's a blessing."
As Ragnow acknowledged, he is far healthier now than he was a year ago. Not that he could have been any more banged up than he was then, but any retirement talk around him can be comfortably pushed off for a little awhile.
