Loving his return to center, Lions' Glasgow entering second potential redemption arc

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Allen Park — We’ve already gone through one redemption arc with Graham Glasgow. Entering his tenth season, things are teed up for a sequel for the Detroit Lions’ offensive lineman.

Popular with both teammates and fans for his immediate on-field contributions and quirky personality, Glasgow became a sympathetic figure for the way he was treated at the end of his first four-year run with the franchise.

The team's former regime, which miserably failed in their efforts to bring the “Patriot Way” to Detroit, inexplicably put Glasgow in a guard rotation with journeyman Kenny Wiggins, declaring they didn’t value Glasgow or intend to re-sign the 2016 third-round pick when his rookie contract expired, despite four years of solid play.

When he hit the market that offseason, Glasgow had no issues finding a team that valued him. The Denver Broncos stepped up with a four-year, $44 million offer.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out with the Broncos. After an impressive run of durability with the Lions, injury issues hit hard. He had shoulder, toe, ankle and leg injuries, the latter a fracture, which derailed his career’s trajectory. After three seasons, he was released by the club.

That unexpectedly led Glasgow back to Detroit, the start of his first redemption. In his re-introductory press conference, he talked about how genuinely excited he was to come back home to play with his friends, namely Taylor Decker and Frank Ragnow, but the team's expectations were modest. They viewed him more as a versatile reserve than a starter. Even though he played his way into the conversation during training camp that year, he was initially passed over for the job.

Injuries quickly changed the picture. Glasgow ended up starting the final 15 games of the 2023 season at three different positions. And he was good. Really good. He looked more like the guy who earned a big contract from the Broncos than the guy they let go.

The Lions liked what they saw so much that they signed him for three more seasons in the offseason.

You already know, things didn’t go according to plan last year. It started with a shift to left guard to make room for Kevin Zeitler. Then, the injury bug bit again, in more ways than one. The reliable Decker missed time with shoulder and knee injuries, weakening the support system around Glasgow. And he battled his own woes, starting with a knee injury in the team’s Week 15 matchup against Buffalo.

Prior to the Bills game, Glasgow was reasonably effective. In 11 of his first 13 starts, he allowed two or fewer quarterback pressures and just two sacks. But on a bum wheel against Buffalo, things fell apart. He surrendered a career-worst 11 pressures in that contest, 50% of what he had allowed all season to that point.

Glasgow was shut down the following week. When he returned, he was back to normal. He allowed two pressures against San Francisco in Week 17 and one in the division-clinching win against Minnesota.

The nightmare against Buffalo could be chalked up to a bad day at the office. Until it happened again, at the worst possible time.

In the first quarter of the team’s playoff game against Washington, Glasgow suffered a high ankle sprain. He was obviously in trouble, limping between snaps. In hindsight, he admits he should have come out of the game, but with Kevin Zeitler already out with injury, Glasgow put pressure on himself to fight through the pain.

It backfired. Glasgow ended up allowing nine pressures, the second-most in his career. Subsequently, the fanbase, for the first time, turned on him. Many wanted to see him cut in the offseason. If nothing else, the expectation was that the team would draft a challenger for his job. And they did, selecting Tate Ratledge in the second round.

But then Ragnow abruptly retired. OK, maybe it wasn’t as abrupt as it felt from the outside looking in. Still, those at the top of the organization were in denial that it would happen until Ragnow started making the calls to let them know his decision.

Perception of what Glasgow might mean to the roster drastically shifted with the Ragnow news. Glasgow went from hypothetically having to fend off two young studs — Ratledge and Christian Mahogany — to needing to be the glue that would hold Detroit’s remodeled line together.

After initially conceding the center workload to Ratledge to begin the offseason program, Glasgow has shifted over from guard, putting him on track to serve as Ragnow’s replacement for the upcoming season.

“I think that’s more natural for him,” offensive coordinator John Morton said. “Because that center and quarterback, that needs to be right. The quarterback has got to feel right right there. I do like the way it’s going right now.”

And while we’re still in the early stages of training camp, Glasgow unquestionably looks healthy and rejuvenated, ready to help the organization traverse choppy waters up front.

“I think things are going pretty well right now, to be honest,” Glasgow said after Monday’s practice, his fourth back at center. “There’s a couple of little things to work out out there. I probably could’ve changed the protection today a couple of times maybe in the two-minute, but other than that, today was a good day.”

Glasgow didn’t love the move from right to left guard last season, but there’s a perception he doesn’t like center, either. That’s not true. It stems from a postgame conversation the previous year, where he expressed how difficult it is to switch to center in the middle of a game.

On the contrary, he’s thrilled to be back in the role.

“I do like playing center,” Glasgow said. “Center’s fun. I like the mental load that comes with it. I think there’s — 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.”

Glasgow was reluctant to talk about his injuries from last season. NFL players, especially offensive linemen, loathe making excuses. It’s viewed as weakness, and there’s little room for weakness in this physically and mentally demanding game. Still, he acknowledged it took two months after the season before everything felt normal with his knee and ankle.

In the Netflix show “Quarterback,” which followed Jared Goff through last season, the documentary crew captures a poignant exchange between Glasgow and Goff as the two go up the tunnel after the loss to Washington. In a tone dripping with sorrow, Glasgow tells Goff, “I’m so f______ sorry.”

Without hesitation, Goff pats Glasgow on the backside and responds, “You’re good, buddy.”

Glasgow never asked for the public’s sympathy, not when he was run out of town by management in 2020, or when the fanbase wanted to do the same this offseason. That was a private conversation between two teammates made public. But now that the anger of the playoff loss has subsided, maybe it's easier to appreciate Glasgow trying to fight through the pain to help his team, the way his quarterback did.

And so we enter the second potential redemption arc of Graham Glasgow. The Lions' Super Bowl hopes could hinge on it.