Allen Park — You know it’s the middle of training camp when you can’t keep your days straight. Dan Campbell had that problem this week, as he fumbled an answer about one of his starters, center Frank Ragnow, returning to practice Monday.
“Yeah, just to have Frank back yesterday,” Campbell said, before stopping to think. “Or, excuse me, two days ago. What is today? Wednesday? Yeah, having him back Monday was great.”
But all that confusion was understandable. It’s hot, they’re tired, and with camp finally nearing its official end early next week — Thursday’s joint practice with Jacksonville was the final day open to the fans in Allen Park — it’s easy to lose track of the time.
Ragnow, the Lions’ Pro Bowl center, knows that feeling these days, too, and not just as a six-year veteran who is counting the days until the prime-time season opener at Kansas City. No, he mostly knows it now as the father of a week-old son.
“Pretty busy right now,” Ragnow laughed after Thursday’s practice, a lighter workout that the veteran sat out for a maintenance day after getting a full session in pads Wednesday.
Ragnow missed last week’s joint practices with the New York Giants and didn’t play in the preseason opener Friday, two days after his wife, Lucy, gave birth to their first child.
“It’s hard to describe,” said Ragnow, the latest in a string of new fathers along the Lions’ offensive line. “It’s just incredible. You gain a lot of respect for your wife, and you kind of fall in love with her in a whole other way. It’s been very cool to see how incredible she has been.
“I try to check in on them as much as I can during breaks here. And then when I’m home, I just try to soak it all up and get ready for the next day.”
A blessing and a break
And in that sense, perhaps, the Ragnows’ new arrival came at just the right time.
The anchor in the middle of the Lions’ highly touted offensive line has spent the last two years dealing with “this freakin’ big toe,” as he calls it, that has severely limited his practice availability. Ragnow initially ruptured the plantar plate in his left foot in Week 4 of 2021 and underwent surgery that cost him the final 13 games of that season. Then he tore it again in the Lions’ season opener against Philadelphia last September, forcing Ragnow to endure another “brutal” season in which he spent nearly as much time in the training room as he did on the practice field.
He still managed to play the final 15 games of last season, and again graded out as one of the league’s best centers while earning his second Pro Bowl nod. But the goal this offseason has been to get to Week 1 healthy. And after insisting at the start of camp that he was “feeling really good” and “in a good space mentally,” Ragnow said Thursday that a week’s worth of parental leave can only help in that regard.
“The break was unique,” he said. “It’s probably the most time I’ve ever had off in camp. But it has probably been a blessing in disguise, with my toe and just kind of managing all that stuff. So it’s been good. The (staff) has been great in managing everything and we’ve had a lot of good practices and good communication up front.
“Yesterday, I felt a little bit like a baby giraffe out there at first. But then you get your feet together and you’re good to go.”
Or “great,” in Campbell’s view, as Ragnow was on the field for nearly 40 snaps in Wednesday’s padded practice against the Jaguars.
“Because you can feel him when he’s out there,” Campbell said. “You can feel his presence. The way he plays, I mean, he’s a dude. He’s a dude. So when you get him in there with those other guys, it’s like all the pieces fall right into place.
“It’s important for those guys to work together. … Because they kind of grow together, and that’s how you build trust.”
There isn’t a more trusted player on this roster than Ragnow, the former first-round pick who is also the Lions’ second-longest tenured player after left tackle Taylor Decker.
Live in the present
Yet for a group that’s unquestionably the backbone of this team, there are questions entering this season of great expectations in Detroit. The projected starters on the line didn’t play a single regular-season snap together in 2022, and days off throughout OTAs and camp have been part of the routine for the entire unit, really. (Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who missed all of last season with a back injury, was working at right guard Thursday, while Graham Glasgow filled in for Ragnow at center.)
“We’ve had a lot of reps together, though,” said Ragnow, 27. “It’s time on task. And it doesn’t even have to be on the field. Just spending time together every day during camp, you just learn each other more and learn how each other thinks. There’s always stuff you can improve on, but we’re definitely starting to think as one unit here.”
And whether it’s here, or there, they all know what the expectation is for an offense that ranked as one of the league’s best a year ago and a team that’s picked to win the NFC North this winter.
Just don’t bother asking a new dad to think that far ahead, though.
“When you’re an offensive lineman, you’ve gotta live one day at a time,” Ragnow said, shaking his head. “So I don’t want to get into that. We’ll do whatever we have to do to win games, you know? Let’s just stay healthy, take it one day at a time, and I’ll leave it at that.”
Still, he added, smiling, “We can be pretty special, I think.”
And with that, he was off to the locker room, where more time on task was waiting. Just as soon as he checked in at home.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo