Lions C Frank Ragnow: Matthew Stafford’s ability to read defenses ‘blows my mind’
Frank Ragnow has spent the last three years with the Lions, playing alongside Matthew Stafford. He was the starting center for the last two seasons, which helped him develop a strong relationship with the veteran quarterback.
With Stafford on his way out and headed for Los Angeles, Ragnow reflected on his time with No. 9 and had nothing but great things to say about him. On “Unrestricted with Ben Leber,” Ragnow called Stafford his favorite teammate ever and doesn’t think that will change for as long as he plays.
“Matthew Stafford, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to top my favorite teammate ever,” Ragnow said. “Toughness, passion, competitiveness, everything. I can’t say enough about the guy, and I’m excited to see how he does in Los Angeles, but I’m also super excited about Jared Goff.
Being the Lions’ center, Ragnow was tasked with calling out protection assignments and identifying blitzers to help Stafford read the defense. But with the way Stafford operates, he was often one step ahead of Ragnow in that department.
Being a 12-year veteran, Stafford has seen just about every type of defense there is, so he was typically prepared to change things up at the line before Ragnow was even ready to. That blew him away, calling Stafford “a savant when it comes to reading defenses.”
“He is toughness, hard work – everything good you can say about a guy I’ll say about him. He’s taught me how to be a true professional. He’s a savant when it comes to reading defenses,” Ragnow said. “Blows my mind. It got to the point – so I would make a lot of the protection calls, but he would know. He would know a call he wants to do and he would switch it—he obviously had last say, right? —but I would make the switch and he would be like, ‘There we go, buddy. I was waiting on you.’ … I’m sure there’s a lot of quarterbacks like that, but from my point of view, he’s just a couple speeds ahead that it’s just crazy when it comes to diagnosing defenses and reading things, it’s wild.”
One of the knocks on Jared Goff was that he didn’t do enough at the line of scrimmage without the assistance of Sean McVay. That was mostly a criticism in 2017 and 2018 when they were first getting started together, but even in 2020, Goff seemed to struggle reading defenses at times.
He wouldn’t see his hot reads quickly enough when under pressure, which led to poor throws and turnovers. That shouldn’t be a problem for Stafford, who’s a quick-processer and performs well when pressured in the pocket.
