Frank Ragnow Toe Injury: What happened to the Detroit Lions Center
The Detroit Lions will have to finish their game against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field without, arguably, their best player: center Frank Ragnow.
Ragnow went to the locker room with a toe injury after a muffed shotgun snap late in the first quarter.
Ragnow snapped the ball off Jared Goff's leg as Goff walked to the line of scrimmage to make a line adjustment with the Lions on first-and-goal at the Chicago 8-yard line.
The Bears recovered the loose ball when Bilal Nichols caught the snap in the air.
Initially, the Lions listed Ragnow as questionable.
#Lions Injury Update:
OLB Romeo Okwara, ankle, questionable
C Frank Ragnow, toe, questionable
But then they downgraded him to out.
#Lions Injury Update:
C Frank Ragnow (Toe) has been downgraded to Out.
Evan Brown is acting as C in Ragnow's absence. Brown is an undrafted free agent who entered the NFL in 2018 playing for the New York Giants.
The rise of Frank Ragnow at the Detroit Lions
The Lions selected Ragnow in the 2018 NFL Draft in the first round with the 20th overall pick. Since then, he has played 47 games, starting all of them.
Ragnow stumbled a bit out of the gates in his rookie season with the Detroit Lions, particularly as a pass protector (57.1 pass-blocking grade in 2018, according to PFF). But those rookie snaps came at left guard.
Since moving to center, a position that he dominated in college at Arkansas, Ragnow has steadily risen toward the upper tier of players at the position.
The PFF gave Ragnow an 80.3 overall grade in the 2020 NFL Season. That grade ranked him third among all qualifying C.
His performance on the pitch earned him his first Pro Bowl selection and also a record-breaking contract this offseason. The arrow is only pointing up for Ragnow as he enters his fourth NFL season.
Ragnow contract
Frank Ragnow signed a four year, 54 million USD contract with the Detroit Lions, including a 6 million USD signing bonus, 42 million USD guaranteed, and an average annual salary of 13.5 million USD.
Ragnow's 13.5 million USD average salary is the highest among all C's.
In terms of the contract value, the Lions center ranks second as the highest-paid center in the league. Only Los Angeles Chargers Corey Linsley tops him with a contract value worth 62.5 million USD (all numbers according to Spotrac).
Looking both at his PFF grade and the value of his contract, it is blatantly apparent that Frank Ragnow is a crucial player for the Detroit Lions, and the team will miss him for as long as the injury keeps him sidelined.