ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Clouds darken overhead when it’s time to discuss the worst moment of his life. A storm’s coming. Fitting. Tate Ratledge lifts himself off a chair near the practice field, we stride toward the door and, by the time he ducks into the Detroit Lions’ facility, a light drizzle has strengthened into a torrential downpour.
Walking through the hallway, as country music blares, the 25-year-old guard mentions a honeymoon on tap. This minicamp will wrap up and it’s off to St. Lucia. In typical newlywed fashion, this new husband hasn’t packed a single item yet.
Ratledge takes a right turn, onto the Lions’ indoor field, plops atop a massive plyo box, tears off the tape around each finger and picks up exactly where he left off. Good times were had in Athens, Ga. The best times. This is where a boy became a man and he won two national championships. It’s also where he suffered the greatest loss of his young life.
He exhales deeply and starts the only place he can.
With the parade.
The Georgia Bulldogs were fresh off a 65-7 College Football Playoff National Championship win over Texas Christian. A thrashing that capped a perfect 15-0 season and catapulted this program to a new realm — back-to-back champs. They were on top of the football world. Five days later, it was time to celebrate. “The whole city of Athens,” Ratledge details, “is flooded with people.” Roughly 50,000 in all. Ratledge was perched on the back of a fire truck with three teammates. Sirens blared. Horns honked. Locals screamed and pumped fists and pointed toward the most unlikely best friends. Ratledge, from the deep country of Tennessee, sifted fingers through his signature mullet. Devin Willock, from New Jersey, in dreads, hoisted his cell phone high into the sky to capture the scenes himself.
All both linemen could see was mass humanity on both sides of the street.
“Unbelievable,” Ratledge says. “What you dream of. There’s no telling how many people were there. You can’t ask for anything better. An ocean of people from all over the state there just to see you drive by on a car. Which is insane.”
That evening, Willock posed for pictures with a young fan at Texas Roadhouse and let the boy try on his enormous championship ring.
That night, college kids then did what college kids do — drank, partied, reveled in championship glory. Ratledge remembers saying bye around 1:30 a.m. He told Willock that both he and Annabelle, his then-girlfriend, now-wife, were heading home. Ratledge dapped him up, said “I love you” and called an Uber. The school’s recruiting coordinator, Chandler LeCroy, was also hanging out with them all.
Memories replay. He pauses.
Ratledge’s exterior is an impenetrable fortress, a barricade that prevents all emotions, all sensitivities from ever seeing the light of day. The man never cries. Even then — briefly — he gets choked up, and takes a sip of water to collect himself. There’s sadness in his eyes with a tint of anger.
“They obviously get in the car,” Ratledge says, “and go somewhere. I’m going to say something I shouldn’t.”
Then, he continues.
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Ratledge returned to his place, slipped into bed and his phone rang. It was Amarius Mims, another hulking offensive lineman on the squad. He hit mute. Didn’t answer. “Mims being Mims,” he told himself. Ratledge thought nothing of such a random call in the middle of the night because this was common. The boys always swapped outlandish party stories in real time. Ratledge fell asleep and — as the sun began to rise — was awakened by Annabelle’s sobbing. Standing over the bed, she was bawling. Her eyes were red. She was barely able to articulate the crushing news.
“Dev’s gone.”
Huh? “Where did he go?” Ratledge wondered.
“He died last night.”
Ratledge entered a state of shock. He didn’t say one word and didn’t show one blip of emotion, period, until finally crying with teammates at the Bulldogs facility later that night.
It was true. Willock, 20, was dead. So was LeCroy. Operating a university SUV not authorized for use, the latter was driving 104 mph at around 2:30 a.m. and careened into two power poles and several trees. Toxicology results revealed her blood alcohol concentration to be .197, more than twice the legal limit in Georgia. An investigation would find that LeCroy, in a 2021 Ford Expedition, was street-racing Jalen Carter’s 2021 Jeep Trackhawk through Athens.
Both Willock and LeCroy were killed. Two other passengers survived.
Immediately, Ratledge felt paralyzed by guilt, by anger. Once in college, he physically ripped the car keys out of a close friend’s hands to prevent him from driving drunk. He’s never been afraid to step in.
This time, he did not.
“I knew she was hammered. I knew it,” Ratledge says. “I just didn’t know she was driving.”
He kept replaying that final goodbye in his mind and blamed himself. It took days, weeks, months for Ratledge to accept the reality that he didn’t give LeCroy the keys. Anyone could’ve stepped in. Not that he’s ever gotten over losing Dev. “It still sticks with me,” Ratledge says. “It’s on my body.” With that, he shows a black and red “DW” tattoo on his wrist. There’s the number 77. And along one forearm — in massive all caps — is “LLDW,” short for Live Like Devin Willock.
He refuses to forget what happened the night of Jan. 14, 2023. It’s part of him.
A kid hardened beyond his years was now stone freakin’ cold.
“It numbs you,” he says.
For better. For worse.
Ratledge admits he doesn’t have much sympathy for other people. Whenever a friend or loved one goes through a hard time, he brushes it off with a “whatever.” Even inside his own home, it’s difficult for Ratledge to shower his wife with compassion when Annabelle is upset. Unnatural. He half-jokes that he tells the dog to cuddle with her. (“I’m out. I don’t know what to do.”) That’s what happens when you’ve lived through the darkest of dark times at such an impressionable age. There were tears, no doubt. But when I ask if he’s ever had the opportunity to let all emotions pour out of him or if he’s been holding it all in, there’s no hesitation.
He holds it all in. He knows this isn’t healthy and Ratledge also knows what he’s about to say next is not popular in 2026.
“This is going to sound really fucked up,” he begins. “I’m not a huge believer in mental health.”
As a human being, that may not be ideal.
As a professional football player, it can be a superpower.
Football never stops. Football has progressed from owning Sundays to now owning Christmas. Nothing stands in the shield’s way. No holiday’s too important, no injury’s too severe. Players break bones, tear ligaments, suffer brain trauma, are quite literally scooped off the turf, stuffed into an ambulance and the sport just… keeps… moving. Let’s not forget the NFL played games six days after one player nearly died on the field. All 32 teams essentially high-stepped over Damar Hamlin’s body and played on.
Weak minds do not last. Compartmentalizing is often an impossible fantasy.
Callousness is endemic to the sport.
The participant impervious to all pain, all emotion thrives. Tate Ratledge is a window into the psychology of the profession. He lost “Dev,” got those tattoos and had zero choice but to charge on for two more seasons in Athens. Along the way, he inked an enormous picture of a lion to his arm above those initials because this species is the king of the jungle. And then, Ratledge was identified by Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes as a man worthy of their offensive line. This is where the two first morphed a perennial loser into a winner. Selected 57th overall in the 2025 NFL Draft, Ratledge started all 17 games at guard as a rookie.
Titanium tough, his ascent may now be the key to the Lions reaching their first Super Bowl in franchise history.
All pain bottled up inside of Ratledge isn’t going anywhere.
His guess is as good as yours on the long-term effects.
In the short term, life outside of football sure can feel weird. Ratledge believes society today is far too sensitive. (More on that later.)
“But that goes back to how I was raised.”
So, that’s the logical place to start — with Football Practice No. 1.
“Fun fact,” Ratledge begins. “I actually cried.”
The hitting drill is called “Sharks and Minnows,” and it tends to boomerang herds of kids to more benign sports.
One player is the shark and placed in the middle of the football field. Everyone else serves as minnows sprinting from one sideline to the other. It’s not complicated. The shark simply chooses one victim to devour.
Large for his age, Ratledge played up a level with much older kids.
He was the chosen minnow. He was sent airborne.
“I got laid out,” he recalls.
Ironic considering this same exact drill was a baptism to this sport for the All-Pro on this Lions offensive line. From the village of Malaeimi in America Samoa to the state of Utah, one of Penei Sewell’s earliest football memories also happens to be Sharks and Minnows. Only, he was designated the “shark” as a 6-foot-3, 325-pound eighth-grader. Sewell gave one hapless “minnow” a concussion, a sprained ankle and never saw him again. His victim quit the team on the spot and changed schools. Share this tale with Ratledge and his eyes bug out. (“Jesus! I had the opposite experience.”) Ratledge, conversely, saw stars, his lip quivered and… uh, no. Dad was not having it. Dean Ratledge played college ball himself at Tennessee Tech before coaching high school football for 40+ years.
He’s old school. Very old school.
Son would rather not relay Dad’s message in that moment.
“That’s how I’ve been raised,” Ratledge says. “He’s hardnosed and I take after him.”
With those curse words, the sport was officially injected into his bloodstream.
There’s growing up in the middle of nowhere, and then there’s Athens, Tenn., an hour north of Chattanooga. Both parents drove 45 minutes to work each day. Ratledge recalls the nearest gas station being a half-hour away.
If he acted up, he was dealt with swiftly. Ratledge received many, many whoopings. Down here? The parents of other kids had the permission to whoop you, too. One of Ratledge’s best friends growing up was future Bulldog teammate Cade Brock. He remembers Brock’s Dad issuing corporal punishment on him and he’s sure his own Dad did the same to Brock. It was status quo.
We’ve heard this often. Calvin Austin III and Will Campbell both looked back at their belt beatings fondly.
Ratledge became familiar with the belt himself.
Spoons, too.
“Whatever she could get ahold of,” he says.
Come again? She?
“Yeah, Mom was mean,” Ratledge adds “You did not want to piss off Mom.”
Even as a junior in college, he got whacked with a belt by Mary Stuart Ratledge for talking back. (“She’s feisty. My Mom’s got a little shit to her.”)
By no means is he complaining. All of it — Tate insists — was well-deserved.
Ratledge dubs himself “hell on wheels” as a kid. Growing up, he was booted out of four daycares — once for kicking the owner’s daughter down the slide because, dammit, she was taking too long. He was bigger than everyone else. If Ratledge wanted something, he took it. Dad loves to tell Tate he hopes he gets a child just like him. Whenever that day comes, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to spank a little girl. “But,” Ratledge adds, “I could probably strike my son.” That’s because he’s eternally grateful for his own upbringing. He wouldn’t change a thing. His parents sacrificed a ton to give him endless opportunities, right to getting him into a private school 120 miles south in Rome, Ga.
“I got disciplined when I needed to be disciplined,” Ratledge says, “and loved on when I needed to be loved on. I couldn’t ask for more. It’s why I turned out the way I am today.”
Hell yeah, he’s into country music. Everything from Waylon Jennings and George Strait to Cody Johnson and Jason Aldean. Obviously, he’s been hunting for years. Turkey reigns supreme in his neck of the woods. The deer hunting stinks, but he was usually able to fill his tags to fill up the freezer with meat. Overall? Nothing extreme ever rocked his world growing up. No tragedies, no trauma.
On the contrary, he hit the jackpot. He started dating his future wife in 10th grade.
In due time, Ratledge was the apex predator driving kids into the dirt on the football field. By seventh grade, he was bigger than everyone. Tate only grew… and grew… and, soon, dominated every drill. Every opponent. A four-star recruit, Ratledge was coveted by schools throughout the SEC and chose Georgia over the hometown Tennessee Volunteers — news akin to an earthquake beneath the feet of some family members. Oh, Dad had no problem ditching his lifelong Vols fandom. One video of Dean peeling the orange “T” off his truck window went viral. Other family members, however, were not pleased. To this day, several refuse to speak to Ratledge. One aunt and uncle he was incredibly close to through his childhood cut him out of their lives completely. Cold turkey.
Six years later, he still hasn’t heard from either individual.
Meanwhile, diehard fans flooded his Instagram inbox with death threats.
“It’s deep,” Ratledge says. “Vol fans are crazy.”
His reasoning was straightforward. Ratledge wanted to win and believed in head coach Kirby Smart.
After barely playing as a freshman, he ruptured his Lisfranc the third play of his sophomore year in 2021. An excruciating injury. ESPN cameras captured a rare sight: Ratledge grimacing in agony. (“It felt like my foot was cut in half.”) The foot still didn’t feel right through Georgia’s undefeated 2022 season. For good measure, Ratledge also gritted through a high ankle sprain his final ’24 season — an injury that’d later require surgery. Georgia didn’t have many able bodies on the O-Line, so he played through the pain. Worth noting, Toradol only accomplishes so much. You can numb up your entire foot, but it’s still difficult to move. Ratledge didn’t feel nearly as powerful. By the time he healed up, his leg was so skinny that his knee brace wouldn’t fit.
Two championship rings made all tears, all bruises, all sprains worth it.
“Couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Ratledge says. “That’s why I decided to go to Georgia. I wanted to win.”
What he didn’t bargain for was a much different type of pain.
He remembers the first time they met. All 380 pounds this kid was carrying miraculously balanced atop a knee scooter —Devin Willock was motoring all around the UGA campus. Even to massive human beings, like Ratledge, this was a monster of a man. Ratledge dapped him up for the first time and felt Willock’s hand swallow his. “What the fuck?” he asked himself, astonished.
This was the largest person Ratledge ever met in his life.
They had nothing in common. Zilch. But Willock was hilarious. This was the happiest person he had ever met in his life. All Ratledge knew was that he needed to be around a personality this infectious.
“He would literally brighten up a room,” Ratledge says. “He was the biggest teddy bear I’ve ever met in my life. Loved everybody. Always had a smile on his face, no matter what was going on. He was the one to lift you up, bring the room together.”
Such is the beauty of football. It brings people together from all conceivable backgrounds.
Such is the beauty of Athens, Ga. It was the perfect extension of his upbringing in Athens, Tenn. The new man in charge, Smart, simply wielded a microphone instead of a belt or wooden spoon. Playing for Georgia is something like dipping into a time machine to the 70s or 80s. This coach’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers each practice. Screw up and everyone hears about it. Those ill-equipped to handle embarrassment were welcome to leave.
Ratledge was berated — ruthlessly — and better for it.
“When I first got into college?” Ratledge recalls. “Him on that microphone, he used to eat me alive. It got a little wild. I’m pretty sure he told me I was sorry and soft and I sucked with a few choice words in-between there. He can flip a switch.”
The best memories with Willock, hands down, were “the sucky ones.” All brutal team runs they thought would kill ‘em. To build a base of mental stamina, Smart famously has players run the entire stadium stairs 15 times. Once for each game on the schedule. “Those,” Ratledge adds, “aren’t made for fat people.” Run to run to run, bonds strengthen during this state of delusion. They’d often trudge into the locker room, sprawl on the locker room floor and ask aloud: What the hell are we doing? One specific practice comes to mind. It must’ve been 120 degrees on the practice field when players looked up to see a staffer accidentally spill all of the team’s water supply down a hill.
There wasn’t one drop of H2O left.
Smart didn’t care. He instructed all players to complete the team run.
“We were dying,” Ratledge says. “You look back at that and it’s like, ‘That’s part of the reason I am where I am. Because we were put through that sucky situation. So when we got in the game, the games were easier than what we did all year long in college. … We’ve been through so much shit together.
“No other sport are you going through hell with however many other people.”
Nothing players faced in games compared to practice, the same point made by Green Bay Packers safety Javon Bullard. Smart’s cutthroat culture engrained a mental toughness that feeds the physical toughness. Ratledge firmly believes in this order of operations because it never works the other way around. It’s impossible to play through pain and/or deliver a blow if you’re unwilling, if you’re soft. “You can’t just be physically tough,” he explains. “Something bad happens and then you shut down.”
Ratledge is forever grateful for the Nick Saban disciple in a visor. Smart is a rare relic in these NIL times.
“He changed me as a person for the better,” Ratledge says. “I owe everything to Coach Smart. He built me to who I am. He believed in us and he was hard on us. That’s how I was raised. Dad was always hard on me for certain things and I wouldn’t want it any other way from my coach. So Coach Smart obviously pushed us in ways we hadn’t been pushed before. And then aside from being a tremendous coach? He’s a player’s coach. You just love him.”
All of it led to wins. So many wins.
Then came the night that changed everyone’s lives.
Ratledge had no clue what to feel when he learned Willock was killed in a car accident.
Suddenly, that national title victory over TCU meant absolutely nothing.
The only thing teammates could do was stick together. After Willock’s death, each night, they congregated. They’d eat. They’d share stories. Simply because nobody wanted to be alone. It was a down time in the football calendar. So during the day, players tried to play golf and work out together at the facility as much as possible.
Somehow, drunk driving remains a gigantic problem in America. There’s Uber. There’s Lyft. There’s no reason anyone should get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated. Still, approximately 11,000 to 13,000 people die each year due to drunk driving. About 1,000 of those deaths occur on college campuses.
Making matters worse, State Route 10 Loop completely circles around the college town of Athens. It’s easy to pick up a head of steam and treat this highway like Daytona 500. At one point in our conversation, Ratledge gets visibly pissed off all over again. After Willock’s death, too many players refused to change. Since January 2023, the team has experienced 25+ incidents of reckless driving.
“We just lost a fucking teammate and we got guys doing all this?” Ratledge says. “That eats at me. How many does it take?”
It’s been addressed. Repeatedly. He’s seen Smart cry in front of the entire team, begging and pleading his players to slow the hell down. Ratledge recalls the head coach bringing in police, the state patrol and instituting defensive driving classes to drill home the same points.
Nothing seems to stop players from feeling invincible.
“He’s doing what he needs to do,” Ratledge adds. “You give a bunch of young kids that much money, stupid shit’s going to happen.
“Slow the fuck down.”
Because here’s what this epidemic destroyed.
Green Bay’s Bullard was close to LeCroy. To this day, his pinned tweet is a picture with her.
Ratledge lost one of his best friends, too. Willock was just starting to truly figure out his life. Everything on and off the field was starting to click.
This is how Ratledge copes. He knows Willock could be in his cleats.
“I don’t take football for granted,” he explains. “I don’t take life for granted. To understand how blessed I am and lucky I am to be in the position I am — and what he would have done to be able to be in this position — it puts it in a different perspective. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to practice today, this sucks. I don’t want to do that.’ Well, fuck, I got a buddy that’s dead that would do anything to be here right now. Kind of puts it in perspective for you.”
The Bulldogs pinned a picture of Willock up in their offensive line room. And throughout the 2023 season, they took turns wearing No. 77. Upon graduating, this group asked the school not to issue the number to anyone else. As long as O-Line coach Stacy Searels is in charge, Ratledge is confident that will be the case. He does little things himself, too, like keeping a picture of Willock on the visor of his truck. (“A little reminder: Slow your ass down.”)
Ratledge doesn’t try to bury this tragedy deep into his subconscious. He admits his friend’s death completely changed his life. He’ll LLDW best he can.
“I can’t come in here and be pissed off,” he adds. “You’ve got to be in a good mood. I’m playing football for a living. What do I have to complain about?”
Yet, he also knows the aftershock is more complicated because it’s his nature to numb all emotional pain, and blast ahead at one speed. It’s who he is. It’s what gives him an edge in this sport. Ratledge doesn’t believe in mental health, a stark departure from the last ass-kicking lineman featured in our pages.
Ratledge understands his approach is not the norm.
“I hear somebody say they’re depressed? Stop being fucking sad. That’s my mindset,” Ratledge says. “I’m never too high. I’m never too low. I’m just even-keeled. I’m not going to have something happen that fucking explodes my life and ruins my whole week. I might let it affect me for a day.”
One twist of a knee ligament on FieldTurf. One horrendous call by an official. One teammate botching an assignment, thus leaving you high and dry and humiliated in front of millions. Hell, one bad bounce of this funny-shaped ball.
So much is out of your control in this sport. A complete lack of emotional sensitivities is a gift.
Attacking day-to-day life with 10 onion layers around his feelings has been a blessing. Ratledge stayed at Georgia for five years. In no universe did he ever imagine walking into Smart’s office and threatening to transfer if he didn’t receive a raise — common practice today. He spurned the hometown Vols (and lost family members) in the interest of winning, and that’s precisely what Smart delivered. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to repay the coach.
Football’s Darwinism naturally led The Mullet to his next coach: Dan Campbell.
He never saw it coming. Ratledge only met with the Lions once. But playing next to Sewell? And a veteran center in Graham Glasgow? Quickly, Ratledge realized this was home. Both players helped him in countless ways as a rookie. Glasgow had answers for every question he threw his way. And then, there’s the head coach who recently decreased his caffeine intake from a gallon of coffee per day to a half gallon.
“The way football’s supposed to be played, how he wants it played,” Ratledge says, “I fit into that mold. Fast. Physical. Nobody’s going to mentally out-do us, physically outdo us. He’s a smashmouth football kind of guy and that’s my best football.”
Granted, this means re-entering a familiar crucible. The ecosystem inside this building is not for everyone. When we chat a second time, via phone, Ratledge insinuates that he’s fresh off getting his ass chewed out by coaches. Battles with Alim McNeill, another titan on this line of scrimmage, have been intense. If you have a rough practice here, the urgency to respond the next day is high.
Campbell and Lions O-Line coach Hank Fraley have no time for repeated errors.
Mistakes must be corrected, or you’re out.
Before, he took life for granted. He thought that nothing bad could ever happen to him. Tate Ratledge viewed himself as “invincible.”
A loved one died and he quit thinking this way entirely. So, in his mind, it’s simple: There’s zero time to hyper-analyze emotions. Life moves too fast.
“It’s not waiting up on you,” Ratledge says. “You must come to a point where you can accept what happened — whatever that is — and move on. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts. It still sucks. That day rolls around every year around that time, and it sucks. But life goes on. You’ve got to keep going.”
Exactly as pro football keeps going.
Campbell has described the nature of the sport as a freight train, a nod to Metallica’s No Leaf Clover. Each Monday, players can see a glint of light at the end of the tunnel. Come Sunday, the train is in your face — whether you’re ready or not. There are pros mentally equipped for the head-on collision and pros who are not. The latter do not last long. Watching peers get cut in the pros was strange at first. But then Ratledge remembered Smart’s boot camp. He credits Dad for opening his eyes to the sport’s reality ages ago.
Dean Ratledge always told his son: Hear the message, not the tone.
Listen to what correction is being taught, instead of being consumed by emotions and thinking someone’s being a big meanie.
“You’ve got to be able to be coached,” Ratledge says. “You can’t take things to heart.
“Bad shit’s going to happen. It’s all about getting back up off the mat. Keep going.”
Unfortunately, this mentality comes with unintended consequences. Ratledge is not a cozy shoulder in times of need, no. If anyone’s crying around him — if anyone’s sad, period — he has no clue what to do. He’s basically Ricky Bobby saying, “I’m not sure what to do with my hands.” That’s been true since high school.
So, yeah. Sorry if this hug feels a little forced, Annabelle. He’s trying. He’s slowly figuring out what to say whenever you’re stressed.
“It’s gotten better,” Ratledge says, “but it’s still an awkward thing for me.”
Let’s give this 6-foot-6, 322-pounder some grace. His day job isn’t easy.
After all, there are Bulldogs scattered across the league.
To reach a Super Bowl, he’ll need to slay former teammates. Bullard is trying to give the Packers a killer instinct. Carter, the player racing LeCroy, inked a four-year, $152 million deal with the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason. After falling to ninth overall, amid character concerns, he’s been a treacherous assignment for all NFL guards and centers. Bring up his role in the fatal accident, and Ratledge cuts in. He harbors no resentment. (“I love Jalen. Jalen is one of my favorite people I played with. Great teammate, great guy. I love Jalen.”) Carter also got the best of him in a 16-9 Eagles win last season. Carter enjoys talking shit on the field. Six seconds into the 2025 season, he spit on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and was ejected.
That’s what makes these meetings between ex-Bulldogs special. Expletives are never exchanged, let alone saliva. There’s a mutual respect.
Says Ratledge: “We went through so much shit together.”
After seeing their win total improve from three to nine to 12 to 15 in Campbell’s first four years, the Lions backtracked to 9-8 last season and missed the playoffs. Hence, the healthy tension in Allen Park this summer.
Take it from Campbell. Here’s how the face of the franchise summarized the tone of training camp in a recent press conference.
“We don’t have time to waste, and we can’t wait for anybody,” Campbell said. “We’re out to get this job done and we can’t mess around. So, we have to be able to trust you, you’ve got to be dependable, you’ve got to be coachable, and you’ve got to be a competitor, man. You’ve got to be able to line up and go back for the next play no matter what happened in the last one. It is competitive. We love that. Because that’s where the cream always rises to the top. You’re going to find those guys and then you’ll find the ones that it’s just too much, it’s hard. Doesn’t make them bad people. It’s probably not for you, at least not here.”
Urgency, once again, is ratcheted up most on the offensive line. That was the case when Campbell and Holmes first built this roster and that’s the case in Season No. 6. Especially considering Jared Goff, surgical yet immobile, is still the quarterback. And especially after seeing Jahmyr Gibbs average less than four yards per carry in five of his last six games. It’s clear the Lions intend to feed their No. 1 back the ball a lot this season. To achieve this mission, Campbell wants his five best linemen starting regardless of position. That’s why Ratledge has also gotten reps at center.
He improved as Year 1 wore on. Ratledge allowed only one sack and four QB hits his last 12 starts.
Like his team, he’s all business. Gone is the mullet that made him a cult hero in the SEC. Nor does he have any imminent facial hair plans.
Last season’s letdown up front still “stings” players and coaches, Ratledge says. There’s no need for signs or speeches or daily affirmations. Everyone realizes the time to reach the Super Bowl is now. The Lions aren’t a lovable underdog anymore. They’ve got to win.
“What’s known,” Ratledge says, “doesn’t have to be talked about. Why are you playing if that’s not your goal? It’s definitely serious around here. Not that it gets brought up 24/7, but it’s a very known thing around the building.”
With that, it’s time to head off to another meeting.
Mistakes will be magnified. F-bombs will fly.
Tate Ratledge doesn’t want it any other way.
All the perspective he needs is inscribed right there on his arms.
2026 NFL Season Preview Features to date:
Tate Ratledge feels no pain
The Kyler Murray Project, Part I: Liberated
The Kyler Murray Project, Part II: The Great Unknown
‘We will be the best offensive line in football:’ Q&A with Alec Anderson, Buffalo Bills enforcer
‘Who’s going to take this yard?’ The Arrival of Eric Wilson
Jordyn Brooks is the captain now
Dregs to Domination: The Aaron Brewer Blueprint
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Great read. Tate's the real deal.
In Carter’s defense Dak did spit on him first. Carter just got caught.