If you’re searching for evidence of Christian Mahogany’s development, look no further than a pair of comments made by Brad Holmes, one in March and the other in August.
The Detroit Lions general manager, speaking at the NFL’s annual owner’s meetings five months ago, credited Mahogany for looking promising in limited opportunties as a rookie, but cautioned he was still young, and that the team was in the market for competition at his position.
Fast forward to last week, when Holmes was asked to list players who made the biggest leaps in training camp, Mahogany was one of five names mentioned, along with cornerbacks Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. (before he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury), wide receiver Jameson Williams and linebacker Jack Campbell.
“He’s made a jump,” Holmes said of Mahogany on Thursday. “He’s gotten even better from the optimism that he showed last year.”
Mahogany has earned the starting job at left guard, sandwiched between veterans Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow.
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“Just being around, being able to train, he’s done a great job,” offensive line coach Hank Fraley said of Mahogany on Tuesday. “He’s got a great football IQ. … He’s still learning. I remind him he’s a rookie still, by my standards. He hasn’t had enough games in the second year. … But he’s grown as a player.”
Mahogany is known for the mean streak in which he plays, never afraid of contact, especially while paving lanes for his running backs.
…But what’s impressed Fraley is Mahogany’s ability to see the “big picture, which is always a great thing when you’re a young player, if you can see the whole picture, and not just ‘Hey, this is my job. This is my job.’ He can focus on a little bit more than just, ‘Hey, I’ve got to block the 3-technique or 2-technique this week.’”
This has to be the most confidence inspiring article that could have been written/shared prior to week one in my opinion.
So many doubting Detroit- Queen Caleb and Ben, KOC finally has “his guy” and of course the Packers being guaranteed a Chip thanks to the arrival of Mr Parsons.
Yet the Detroit Lions who overcame odds, injuries, schedule, Goff playing outside (lol)… to win back Division Titles and a pair of playoff games are being forgotten?
I guess we have too many pro bowlers in their early primes to stay competitive? Maybe we’d be better with a veteran leader at QB or a great HC?
What else could give us confidence? Hope?
Jamo- he had a 76 rating and turned just 91 targets into 1,000 plus yards and 7 TDs- plus another 60 and a Tud on sweeps- any time you can get 1100 yards and 8 tds out of just 102 chances, it’s great…. KNOWING HOLMES SEES HIM AS BEING MOST IMPROVED FROM THAT???
CM- he had 2 starts and scored an average PFF of over 81 with balanced scores over 80 both run and pass blocking! Many of us had him locked into our OL depth charts 5 months ago, but to hear Brad suggest he’s most improved really leads me to feel like the combo of he and Rat should be as good or even better than GG and Ziegler last year Far more mobile for sure
Arnold started off ROUGH last year and settled down a lot after week 7… his rep for being grabby stayed, but his penalties feel off a ton Again- if Brad sees him as a top 5 most improved and he can be a solid CB1 and let Reed be a great CB2? Versus CD3 being an okay CB1 and Terrion a struggling CB2 last year?
lastly it’s Jack- if Jack improves? 77 grade with 132 tackles with 1.5 sacks and 5 PDs? He’s already a solid and reliable player all around. If he can turn those instincts and that athleticism into a Z Baun type year?
Basically our high floor players like Decker, Ra, Anzalone and Reed already secured those pretty damn good groups… but if our first round athletic freaks and our 6th round steal are finally hitting their peaks?
Based on what he showed last year in a couple of the trickiest spots a new player to a team could be put in, I came into the season with the utmost confidence that we had no worries at one of the guard spots. In fact I expect him to be one of the league’s best, very quickly. He should never have been drafted so low.
Mahogany should be (x) amount better than Glasgow was last year, since Glasgow doesn’t feel comfortable at LG. Glasgow is (x) amount worse than Ragnow. Then with Ratledge he will probably start off worse than Zeitler since he’s a rookie but could be an improvement by the end of the season.
So really it’s about how much those improvements and downgrades cancel each other out. I don’t think it’s unfair to say we improved at LG, downgraded at C, and RG is the wild card.
The huge blow is losing Rags. He was so good. He was smart at the line. He could get to the 2nd level. We are not better because he left. I’m just hopeful GG can be “good enough”, which there is some experience there starting, and that our OGs are better than expected.
Yeah, that’s my biggest concern out of everything too. Not only Ragnow’s talent, but he was a force multiplier too. Helped everyone get on the same page, identify what the defense was trying to do, etc… There’s a reason Zeitler had easily his best year playing between Rags and Sewell.
That’s why I was desperately hoping we could get one more year from ragnow. Having Glasgow coming off the bench would have been the ideal scenario. With mahogany and ratledge learning ragnow has the ability (more than Glasgow) to erase or cover up their mistakes. Glasgow is solid but Frank was special. Most of the little things he did to make this offense great are different to measure.
Agree completely, that was the way I was hoping it would set up too. Plus Ratledge could have learned from the best for a year before hopefully taking over next year. C’est la vie. That’s how the league works.
Hopefully it won’t matter. The Eagles went from special (Kelce) to solid (Cam Jurgens) and didn’t miss a beat. Of course they already had Jurgens waiting in the wings, and Hurts certainly makes all of their jobs easier, but still. It’s doable.
Glass half full: transitioning off of Ragnow was always going to suck. Now we get it out of the way so that next year it’s not an issue when we are defending our SB title.
Are we getting it out of the way though? Glasgow is a stopgap. Pretty sure Tate will get first crack at it next year no matter what, hopefully he’ll have played some reps there. Honestly we should have him play center in blowouts.
