The Lions' opening drive in their win over the Bucs ended with Penei Sewell dapping up Tate Ratledge as Amon-Ra St. Brown strode into the end zone. On the right side of the offensive line, Ratledge washed out a defensive tackle running a stunt with defensive end Hassan Reddick, then picked up Reddick after Sewell was spun out of the play. Sewell was facing the opposite end zone when Jared Goff fired a dart to St. Brown for a 27-yard touchdown.
Ratledge didn't even remember the play when first asked about it after the Lions' win on Monday Night Football. He turned to backup guard Kayode Awosika in the locker room for confirmation of the details, then sort of shrugged and said he did his job. The same could be said on the left side of the line for Christian Mahogany, who erased a blitzing safety with ease.
"Both of our guards have improved," Dan Campbell said this week as his team prepares for the second chunk of the season. "I mean, there is clear and noticeable improvement. There's a lot to go and they know that. There’s so much room to get better, and I expect them to take another step. They’re going to need to take another step. Because when that happens, collectively we’ll all get better and that whole unit will get better.
"But from where we came from Green Bay, they have taken noticeable jumps."
When Frank Ragnow and Kevin Zeitler departed last offseason, the Lions lost 20 years and 300-plus starts of experience on the interior of the offensive line -- and replaced it with essentially none. Mahogany stepped in at left guard with two starts to his name, while Ratledge stepped in at right guard fresh out of Georgia. Perhaps the biggest question facing the Lions was how the duo would hold up on either side of Graham Glasgow, who was shifting from guard to center.
In other words, would their offensive line still be a strength?
"Tate is pretty advanced in how he seems to view the game, and Christian is a good player, he’s picking it up, too," Glasgow said early in camp. "People might have some down expectations of us this year, and I think that we’ll end up surprising 'em."
There's a long way to go yet, 10 games plus the playoffs to draw conclusions on Detroit's rebuilt "engine room," as offensive line coach Hank Fraley likes to call it. But Ratledge and Mahogany look like answers. And Glasgow, while obviously not the same force as Ragnow, has been "steady in there in the middle," said Campbell, a calming presence between the "those two young guys." The three of them, Fraley would say, are shoveling coal.
Campbell corrected himself Tuesday. The way he sees it, Mahogany, who just turned 25, and Ratledge, 24, are no longer young: "We’re at the halfway point here, they’re veterans now." He made sure to tell them that Monday when the Lions returned from their bye. Both of them nodded, knowing the goal.
"I wouldn’t say excuses, but there’s really no more time to waste," Mahogany said. "We’ve got more games under our belt, and that’s what it is, and I agree with him wholeheartedly."
"Since game one that’s been the expectation," said Ratledge. "There are no excuses to not come out here and perform. That’s been my expectation for myself since I started playing."
The Lions' offense was far from perfect against the Bucs, whose physical defense pushed back up front. But on Detroit's second touchdown of the game, a 78-yard sprint by Jahmyr Gibbs, there were the big boys leading the way.
Ratledge and Sewell plowed aside one defensive tackle on a combo block before Ratledge cleared out linebacker Lavonte David, while Mahogany and Glasgow blew back the other defensive tackle on a combo block before Mahogany picked off linebacker SirVocea Dennis. Taylor Decker took care of his job on the left end. Gibbs would say afterward that all he saw was black jerseys, and all he had to do was run straight. When Ratledge was asked about his blocks on the play, he nodded toward Mahogany as if to say, you see his?
Neither one loves talking about himself, per the norm for offensive linemen. Mahogany declined to name his best game so far, while Ratledge thought about it and decided "Baltimore, just the way we ran the ball, that’s one you take pride in as an offensive lineman." Mahogany said of his own performance through seven games, "just a kid trying to get better," while Ratledge said he's trying to "limit those hiccups."
There were belches across the board in the Lions' Week 1 loss at Lambeau, when fears about the offensive line came into glaring focus. Ratledge and Mahogany were charged with three of the Packers' four sacks of Jared Goff, per PFF. They've allowed one sack combined in six games since.
"I think they’re both just so much more comfortable now than Week 1," Goff said Tuesday. "And I don’t think that’s an indictment of where they were in Week 1, it’s just time on task and reps. I think Christian’s more comfortable next to Taylor now and Tate next to Penei, and just gelling a little bit and getting comfortable with the way that Graham slides to or away from them, that whole thing, and their combination blocks. They both are in pretty good rhythm right now."
Communication was the biggest problem for the O-line in its debut, in a loud environment on the road. Mahogany said that's where he's grown the most, especially in conjunction with Decker and Glasgow. Ratledge said that his biggest strides have come in his "knowledge of the playbook," admitting that the season-opener "kind of opened my eyes that maybe I didn’t know it was as well as I thought I did, so just diving into that."
"And then of course playing next to all these guys," he said, "growing with how we play together."
The Lions allowed pressure on 34.1 percent of Goff's drop-backs over the last two seasons when their offensive line was widely considered one of the best in the NFL. They've been slightly better this year, at 33.9 percent. And while the run-blocking hasn't been quite as dominant, they're averaging 4.5 yards per carry, compared to 4.6 the last two seasons. Mahogany credits Goff for "moving around (in the pocket) and getting the ball out and making our job a lot easier this year, too."
For Goff, the growing comfort of Ratledge and Mahogany has been most noticeable "in between plays, like in the huddle, there’s no flinch. There’s no deer in headlights. It’s just very focused on what’s the next play. Forget about whatever happened on the previous one and move on."
The two guards have taken their share of lumps. They both had their hands full against the Browns' heavy defensive front, though they ultimately kept Goff clean and helped the Lions churn out 34 points, and scuffled at times in pass protection against the Chiefs and their blitz-happy scheme.
Mahogany whiffed on All-Pro Chris Jones on the game-changing 4th and 2 where Goff was pressured into a slightly low throw that was dropped by Amon-Ra St. Brown. Ratledge whiffed on Jones on a third down in the fourth quarter that resulted in a sack when the Lions were trying to play catch-up.
To no surprise, Ratledge said Jones is the most difficult one-on-one matchup he's faced to date: "That was a learning curve for me." A couple matchups stand out for Mahogany, but he said with a smile that he'll "keep that internal" so that people don't go watch the games. For both, consistency is the aim moving forward.
"It's just the little mess-ups that I have here or there, trying to eliminate those as much as I can," said Ratledge. "I think there’s been some games where I’m playing a pretty clean game and then I get beat, like the Kansas City game, I thought I was playing a pretty good game and then the two-minute (offense) comes around and I give up a sack."
Last year, Zeitler and Glasgow ranked third and 47th, respectively, per PFF, among NFL guards. This year, Mahogany and Ratledge rank 16th and 17th, respectively; they rank second and third among guards drafted in the last two years, bested only by this year's No. 12 pick Tyler Booker of the Cowboys.
Their next test will be one of their toughest yet. A rather desperate Vikings team comes to town Sunday with an aggressive defense that touts a trio of playmakers in the trenches in Jonathan Greenard, Jonathan Allen and Jalen Redmond, all of whom boast multiple sacks. As Ratledge put it, "All three of them are physical, all three of them are violent, all three of them play hard and rush the passer well."
"So it presents a challenge -- a challenge that we have to step up and handle," he said.
That's exactly what Ratledge and Mahogany have done this season. It hasn't been perfect -- because it never is on the offensive line -- and neither one is content. Proud, perhaps, "but I wouldn’t say I’m pleased," Mahogany said. "When I’m pleased, I probably won’t be in this locker room anymore."
But the two of them have answered the bell, which will only ring louder from here on out.
"From the day I came in here, these guys around me, the coaches, have told me what the standard of our offensive line room is," said Ratledge, "so my goal was to come in there and try to not let there be any drop-off."