How ice fishing, family time and rest helped rejuvenate Detroit Lions' Frank Ragnow

A few weeks after the Detroit Lions' season ended with a heartbreaking NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Frank Ragnow hopped in his car and drove 16 hours from his native Minnesota to northern Manitoba to spend a week in temperatures that hovered around minus-45 degrees.

It was so cold one day, the doors on Ragnow's car froze shut.

"I’ve never seen that before in my life," he said Thursday.

Ragnow spent most of his time in Manitoba ice fishing. He caught a 30-plus-inch burbot, an eel-like fish with leopard print. But mostly he vegged out, got away from football and let his body heal up and rest.

"I just dumbed out," Ragnow said. "Here’s what I do, I get there, I lose cell service and I think about waking up, fishing all day, eating, going to sleep and doing it again. The simpler the better."

Ragnow's retreat to northern Canada was part of a larger plan to take some concerted time off this offseason.

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Normally, the Pro Bowl center said he takes a week or so off after the season, then eases his way back into training. This year, after playing through a collection of knee, ankle, back and toe injuries that briefly cast doubt on his future — Ragnow said at the Super Bowl his words were misinterpreted and he never considered retirement — Ragnow took about a month off and returned for formal workouts this spring refreshed and feeling "incredible."

“I spent a lot of time with my baby," he told the Free Press." A lot of time with my baby and my wife and my family back home. I went to northern Manitoba in the middle of nowhere for a week and kind of ice-fished and spent a lot of time solo and now I’m really focused. I took some time off and really kind of — I’ve always been kind of, I don’t want to say anxious, but it’s always like you got to go, you go to go, you got to go, you got to go, and I've never really given myself time off in the offseason. And this year I actually took time to let myself heal, let my body heal up and then get ready to roll."

Speaking before his second annual Skeet Shooting Showdown on Thursday at the Bald Mountain Shooting Range in Lake Orion, Ragnow said he is motivated by the way last season ended and feeling positive about his health and what it means for his and the Lions' future.

Ragnow missed two games and appeared on the injury report with four different ailments last season. He skipped the Pro Bowl for injury reasons but did not require any offseason surgeries.

Asked Thursday if he contemplated how much longer he wants to play in the NFL during his downtime this winter, Ragnow, who turns 28 on Friday, said, "I don’t live that way. I’d say I kind of just live day by day."

"Ever since my dad passed, man, I’ve learned that life is so precious," he said. "My wife hates it, I’m not a good planner, but I take life one day at a time. That’s kind of how I live."

About a dozen Lions joined Ragnow at Thursday's event, whose proceeds went to support the Rags Remembered Foundation that Ragnow started in 2022 to honor his late father, Jon, who died of a heart attack when Ragnow was in college.

The foundation supports grieving children who've lost a close family member by providing them with outdoor opportunities. Ragnow will host a camp for more than 50 students on June 1, and has a fishing event planned for later this summer at the end of training camp.

His foundation also provides in-home tailgate parties for families throughout the year.

“What I’m seeing now and what’s been so cool is we’ve had these events and multiple families have came to multiple events and now they’re befriending each other," Ragnow said. "It’s almost like we’re developing a community where they’re developing the support system and they can look over and say this kid lost their parent, so and so lost this, and they can see they’re not alone. And I think that’s been really, really cool."

This year, strengthened by a grant he eventually will receive from the NFL for being the Lions' Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee, Ragnow said he hopes to grow his charity's reach while maintaining the intimacy of its programs.

On the field, he's hoping for bigger and better things from his football team as well.

"For me it’s just not forgetting how this last past year ended," Ragnow said. "Obviously, the fans, the community, the city, rightfully so are excited, but at the end of the day it’s a failure and at the end of the day we got to keep that fresh wound in the back of our head and use it as motivation and that’s what I’m trying to do and it’s kind of one day at a time, realizing it’s a new year and a lot has to be done."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' Frank Ragnow feels 'incredible' after low-key offseason