By now, you’ve probably seen the video of Frank Ragnow, surrounded by friends and family, receive the call from his future employers: the Detroit Lions. The Lions even offered video of their side of the call. Marvin of Lions Tumblr blog “Detroit Lions FTW” even went as far as to splice the audio and video from both videos together to make one amazing, two-sided video of the moment.
But there is so much more to that night. Local Minnesota news station KSTP Sports was invited to Ragnow’s draft party in Victoria, Minnesota for Thursday night’s festivities. They have an 11-minute behind-the-scenes look at everything that happened Thursday night. It’s raw footage that you rarely get to see, especially in this entirety.
I highly suggest you watch the entire thing right now (bring some tissues), but here are the highlights:
- Early in the video, it’s clear there were teams that wanted to aggressively pursue him. His agent whispers in his ear, “[Redacted] is trying to trade up right now but they’re picking [redacted]. [Redacted] is trading back to get you. Okay, so if you’re on the phone and someone calls, I’ve got to know who it is, so I can tell [redacted] who’s trying to get you.”
- When the Packers pass on Ragnow at 18 overall, the entire room breathes a sigh of relief, with several friends saying, “thank God” and “dodged a bullet.” Of course, Minnesota has a pretty extreme rivalry with the Packers.
- The video reiterates just how unexpected the pick was for the Lions. Detroit kept their interest in Ragnow completely secret after the NFL Combine, and Ragnow admits he was very surprised when Detroit called. “To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it,” Ragnow told the local reporter. “But I’m more than thrilled to be there.”
The best part of the video is just watching how appreciative and humble Ragnow was at his own draft party. It was an emotional day, and you can see just how much it meant to the Lions’ newest offensive lineman.