{"id":212800,"date":"2025-07-16T23:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T23:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/212800\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T23:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T23:48:10","slug":"lions-legend-officially-retires-after-shocking-decision-at-age-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/212800\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions legend officially retires after shocking decision at age 29"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Detroit Lions already knew they wouldn&#8217;t have Frank Ragnow this season.<\/p>\n<p>But his retirement was only made official on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when the Lions placed Ragnow on the reserve\/retired list.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Ragnow, the four-time Pro Bowl center, stepped away from the game at age 29.<\/p>\n<p>The news of Ragnow&#8217;s retirement officially broke on June 2, but the procedure of moving him to the NFL&#8217;s retired list didn&#8217;t happen until July 16.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These past couple of months have been very trying as I&#8217;ve come to the realization that my football journey is ending and I&#8217;m officially retiring from the NFL,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nfl\/detroit-lions\/news\/lions-all-pro-center-frank-ragnow-announces-retirement-nfl\/e8e19c1b0adfabee51463ad3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Ragnow explained on Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Ragnow explained on Instagram<\/a>. &#8220;I&#8217;ve tried to convince myself that I&#8217;m feeling good but I&#8217;m not and it&#8217;s time to prioritize my health and my families future. I have given this team everything I have and I thought I had more to give, but the reality is I simply don&#8217;t. I have to listen to my body and this has been one of the hardest decisions of my life. The Lions organization has been absolutely incredible throughout this process and I can&#8217;t emphasize this enough how grateful I am for this team and all the fans. It was an absolute honor going to battle for you all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nfl\/buffalo-bills\/news\/buffalo-bills-huge-break-pursuit-toppling-chiefs-chasing-super-bowl\/83299a212c0fec29ee55cfdb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bills get a huge break toward knocking off the Chiefs;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Bills get a huge break toward knocking off the Chiefs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Ragnow suited up in 96 games overall for the Lions.<\/p>\n<p>He was the 20th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft out of Arkansas. The 6-foot-5, 310-pound center retired while still at the top of his game.<\/p>\n<p>MORE NFL NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions already knew they wouldn&#8217;t have Frank Ragnow this season. But his retirement was only made&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[346,146,113,2506,7,7029,147,6,4378],"class_list":{"0":"post-212800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-chiefs","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-lions","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-frank-ragnow","14":"tag-lions","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-the-lions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114865589949453855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}