Sweat dripped through the fingertips of Graham Glasgow's gloves after Tuesday's scrimmage in Allen Park. It streamed down his forehead after Monday's practice in 90-degree heat. This is what it must have been like for Frank Ragnow. Glasgow's body and brain are in overdrive as he takes over for the All-Pro center on the Lions' offensive line.
"I tell a lot of the other guys, when I would play guard, I wouldn’t sweat nearly as much. You go back to center, you have to think about everything, and I’m leaking," Glasgow said with a laugh on 97.1 The Ticket.
Up front, the Lions are trying to plug the holes. Their line was near-impervious the past few years, with Ragnow deciphering the defense in concert with Jared Goff, while flanked by trusted vets. It often won the play before the snap, and had the quickness to recover if not. Blitzes weren't a problem. Adjustments were simple. Protections were clean. But with Ragnow and Kevin Zeitler out of the picture and Tate Ratledge and Christian Mahogany stepping in, "that's 20 years of experience," Glasgow noted, replaced by essentially none.
The Lions tried Ratledge at center to start training camp. It was a monumental ask of a rookie who never played the position in college. It took the team a few practices to scratch the idea, at least for now, and pivot to Glasgow. Ratledge is back at right guard, where he can focus on blocking the man in front of him instead of sifting through 11 players on the other side of the ball, tagging possible threats, sliding teammates here and there -- "you have to basically set the blocking scheme for everybody else," said Glasgow -- and snapping the ball before it's too late. And then blocking the man in front of him, with essentially one hand.
"I don’t think he did a bad job, either," Glasgow said. "I just think he probably feels more comfortable at guard."
Glasgow feels comfortable at center, which marks a difference from last year when he moved from right guard to left to accommodate Zeitler. His experience in the middle of the offense dates back to college and his first stint in Detroit. He enjoys the chess match with the defense. He's fluent in the Lions' offense. And he's usually on the same wavelength with Goff, who ultimately has to get the team into the right plays: "I think we see a lot of things the same way."
"Center’s fun," Glasgow said. "I like the mental load that comes with it. It’s a challenge, but I think that’s something that I’m pretty good at, so I like to do it. If it came to me having to play center and make the calls or me be a guard and then think about the calls anyways just to make sure that the calls were right, I’d probably rather just play center."
In year 10 of his career, Glasgow represents a stable option at either position. The spectrum is much wider for Ratledge, who should benefit from carrying a lighter load as a rookie. Glasgow would know; so would Ragnow. Both started out as guards in the NFL. Glasgow said this week that it "takes you about a good year, to be honest," to master the mental demands of playing center in a highly-advanced offense like Detroit's.
"If you’re just coming into a system like this, we have a lot of plays, we run every type of scheme -- gap, outside zone, inside zone, trap, wham, pin and pull, tackle pull -- we do everything, so I feel like sometimes you end up kind of co-mingling things together that you’re not supposed to, and it’s hard to separate things if you’re not well versed in what we’re doing. It probably takes somewhere around a year for somebody who’s a young center in this system to be able to differentiate all those, even just the tags, unless somebody was helping him out, like Jared, or another guy next to him," said Glasgow. "It’s not easy."
In other words, "I feel like I’m probably best suited to do that for who we have."
The Lions' offensive line has gone from a sure thing to a bit of an unknown, which is disconcerting for a Super Bowl contender whose identity is founded on winning up front. In the early portion of 11-on-11's Monday, a snap count error led to one botched play and a blown assignment stemming from a miscommunication led to another. In the first half of Tuesday's scrimmage, the first-team offense went backward more than forward against the first-team defense. As "frustrating" as some of the issues can be for a line that's been such a well-oiled machine, said Glasgow, better that the Lions fix them now.
"As long as you’re having an honest dialogue with somebody and not trying to attack them for being dumb or, like, 'How could you do that?' I think that it’s a really good learning experience, especially for some of these younger guys," he said.
Even Glasgow has had his moments. He admitted he should have changed a couple protections in a two-minute drill on Monday. The Lions have also been playing without starting left tackle Taylor Decker (shoulder), whose return to practice should shore up the other end of the line across from Penei Sewell. Dan Skipper has had quite the time trying to block Aidan Hutchinson.
The line did come to life in the later stages of Tuesday's scrimmage, and voila, so did the offense. Glasgow and Ratledge sprung David Montgomery on a big run, and Mahogany, who can really lay the hammer, helped open some lanes for Jahmyr Gibbs. The pass protection was better all around. Once "we got things ironed out," said Glasgow, "we were moving the ball, we were scoring, and everything was good."
With all eyes on the O-line, "we’re working really hard out here, we’re really trying to build good chemistry and make sure that the guys next to each other can trust everybody," Glasgow said. "Tate is pretty advanced in how he seems to view the game, and Christian is a good player, he’s picking it up, too. Some people might have some down expectations of us this year, and I think that we’ll end up surprising ‘em."
The same could be said for Glasgow. He knows how it looked for most of last season. He struggled with the transition to left guard while also battling a knee injury, then had maybe his worst game of the season while playing through an ankle injury in the Lions' playoff loss to the Commanders. In an emotional moment captured by the Netflix show 'Quarterback,' Glasgow apologized to Goff as they walked quietly up the tunnel after he surrendered nine quarterback pressures and a sack. Glasgow declined to go into it any further -- "That's just between us," he said -- but acknowledged that the pain in his ankle lingered into March. The sting of the loss might have lasted even longer.
Glasgow took a lot of heat from the fanbase in the aftermath of the game. Asked if the way last season ended gives him something to prove this year, he said, "Yes and no. I mean, I get it. I understand how things go. In a lot of ways perception is reality, when it comes to almost anything, not even just playing in the NFL. There’s always a lot more to it, but at the end of the day, you gotta come in here and do your job, and I don’t blame anybody for saying what they said or doing what they did, or whatever. Just gotta come in here this year and play well."
Glasgow, 33, and Decker, 31, are the elder statesmen of an offensive line that suddenly skews young. That should be a good thing for the Lions in the long run, perhaps even by the end of this season. Right now, it breeds uncertainty. Glasgow knows it. He's doing his best to help Ratledge and Mahogany get up to speed by taking the problem-solving out of their hands and the "second-guessing" out of their heads. He says they've done well so far with their assignments: "They’re young but they’re good. That makes things easy."
The standard is the standard, but it won't be easy to maintain it. It's not supposed to be. It's exhausting mentally and physically, especially in the middle. Glasgow wiped his brow, plopped his helmet on the turf beneath his feet and said, "While expectations for us might be low — or lower — I think that’s a good opportunity to be able to exceed them."