During their Week 9 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, injury was added to the insult with multiple offensive lineman banged up. Left guard Christian Mahogany is going to miss significant time with a left leg injury, and there seems to be genuine concern about the availability of offensive tackles Penei Sewell and Taylor Decker for Week 10 against the Washington Commanders.
General manager Brad Holmes has called the offensive line the engine for the Lions, and he once offered an analogy of a garden that needs to be watered constantly. So it's fair to assume he has pivoted toward some interest in offensive lineman as the trade deadline loomed.
During his weekly appearing on 97.1 The Ticket's "Costa and Jansen with Heather" Tuesday morning, Lions head coach Dan Campbell or course was asked about the trade deadline and more specifically possible additions to the offensive line. He acknowledged they've been looking, while also noting the difficulting in acquiring someone as teams hang onto their offensive line depth.
Dan Campbell puts kibosh on offensive line contingency plan Lions fans would love
In June, the Lions lost multi-time Pro Bowl center Frank Ragnow to retirement. The idea the team should try to coax him out of retirement before the season started briefly surfaced, but it never really got serious traction as Ragnow seems to be settling into retirement rather nicely.
On Tuesday, "Costa and Jansen' co-host Jon Jansen took the offensive line trade deadline conversation another direction, asking Campbell if there has been any consideration to calling Ragnow to see if he'd be interested in coming back to finish the season.
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Campbell's answer left no room for speculative nuance.
"Here's what I know about Frank, if Frank really wanted to...he would be blowing my phone up," Campbell said. "And I haven't gotten a text yet, so I think Frank is feeling good about his decision. Look, they just had another baby. So, happy for them. That ship has sailed."
As Campbell mentioned, Ragnow and his wife just welcomed their second child. It's fair to assume, any lingering effects of the injuries that shortened his career aside, he is not anywhere close to being in "football shape" right now.
It's also fair to assert, as is common for offensive lineman after they retire, that Ragnow is already at noticeably less than the weight he played at. So even if he wanted to return to the middle of the Lions' offensive line for late season run, there are minimum, basic physical hurdles to clear.
The idea of Ragnow coming back to help the LIons is fun to think about. But it has never been realistic at any point, and the prevailing authority that Campbell is has undeniably put it to bed.