Reggie Ragland aims to keep winning with Detroit Lions

Reggie Ragland has done a lot of winning on the football field. The Detroit Lions have not. But in his first training camp with the NFL team, the linebacker said the Lions have what it takes to become winners.

Ragland played for the 2019 NFL champion when the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV on Feb. 2.

“I see the same qualities in this team as in Kansas City,” Ragland said. “We got the pieces. We’ve just got to keep putting them together and just keep playing hard and being consistent and just keep finishing. I think we got the guys to do that. We’ve just got to go out there and play ball.”

After finishing at 3-12-1 in 2019, the Lions haven’t won a postseason game since 1991, have missed the playoffs 17 times in the past 20 seasons and most recently won the NFL championship in 1957.

In Ragland’s final three seasons at Bob Jones High School in Madison, the Patriots did not lose a 6A Region 8 game, and he also helped Bob Jones win the AHSAA Class 6A boys’ basketball championship in 2010. Ragland earned All-State recognition in football three times (once as a tight end, twice as a linebacker), won the 6A Lineman of the Year Award in 2011 and received Under Armour All-American recognition at Bob Jones.

In four seasons at Alabama, Ragland played on two national championship teams and earned the SEC Defensive Player of the Year Award and unanimous All-American recognition in 2015.

After being selected in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft, Ragland suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament at the Buffalo Bills’ training camp as a rookie, and the knee injury caused him to miss the entire season.

During the 2017 preseason, the Bills traded Ragland to the Kansas City Chiefs after changing head coaches and switching from a 3-4 to 4-3 defense in the offseason. He was ready to play by the third game and started half of his 14 appearances in 2017.

In 2018, Ragland was a regular for the Chiefs and made 86 tackles. But for 2019, Kansas City changed its base defense from a three-man front to a four-man look, taking a linebacker off the field. And with the Chiefs often using five defensive backs, they typically had only two linebackers in the lineup at a time. Ragland played less than half as many snaps in 2019 as he did in 2018.

Ragland played in 14 regular-season games with seven starts in 2019. He recorded 30 tackles, four tackles for loss, two sacks and returned a fumble recovery for a touchdown while playing 21 percent of the Chiefs’ defensive snaps. In the postseason, Ragland played at least 41 percent of Kansas City’s defensive snaps in each of its three playoff games and had eight tackles, including one behind the line of scrimmage.

On March 27, Ragland joined Detroit in free agency for a one-year, $962,500 contract.

Ragland had to learn the Kansas City defense quickly when he joined the Chiefs in the preseason in 2017. He’s had more prep time with the Lions, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, the work was confined to online lessons until training camp started.

Ragland said he was prepared to adapt quickly even though he was “behind the eight-ball with no OTAs and things like that.”

“I could take it all the way back to Bama with coach (Nick) Saban,” Ragland said. “That situation really made me grow up. From being a high schooler and then really playing with grown men going into my freshman year at Alabama, so you really got to grow up faster and you got to think faster.

“Now this is my fifth year in the league, so I’m considered a vet, and I’m one of the oldest in the room, so I got to be on my job, and I got to consistently keep showing and striving to keep getting better and just finding ways to help myself and my teammates out there on the field, so there ain’t no excuses.

“Yeah, I’m coming into a new system, a new locker room. Me as the person I am, I like to get around my guys and get to know them and understand them as a person. I think my teammates like me so far. For me, just come in and get comfortable. Having fun, man, and don’t come here and be arrogant with it. That’s not my personality at all, but I just want to come in, have fun, win games and then cruise, if that makes sense.”

In the NFL last season, only one team yielded more yards than Detroit and no team gave up more passing yards than the Lions.

In free agency, Detroit signed two other linebackers – Jamie Collins, a Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots, and Elijah Lee, who was on the opposite sideline from Ragland in Super Bowl LIV for the 49ers. The Lions also returned starters Jarrad Davis and Christian Jones from their 2019 linebacker corps.

The added players allow coach Matt Patricia to mix and match at linebacker.

“I love the fact I’ve been able to play outside and inside,” Ragland said of his training-camp work. “It gives me more chances to get on the field and play in this scheme, so then it gives our coaches scheme-wise to put us everywhere on the field. By the time the season hits, it doesn’t matter where we line up at, we’re all going to know the spots. It’s a good thing to keep offenses guessing to where guys are going to be at, so it’s very good for us. The more we can do, the more we can get out there on the field and play, and the coaches are going to open up the playbook and just let us play.”

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.

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