Tate
Ratledge.
Tate
Ratledge.
Georgia· 6'7"· 308 lb· 4.97s 40
"A plug-and-play right guard, Ratledge’s elite functional strength and 95th-percentile hand usage make him a dominant run blocker whose high pad level is the only chink in his armor."Pre-draft read
Three-year starter exclusively at right guard, a phone-booth mauler built on mass, grip strength and a wide, stable base. Fires off low enough on down blocks and duo to root nose tackles off the spot, and finishes through the whistle. Hands are heavy and accurate on contact; once he latches, the rep is over.
Protection is anchor-first rather than athletic. He absorbs bull rush with a firm inside hand and is almost never walked into the quarterback, but recovery quickness against interior counters and games lags. In the run game he is best on angle blocks and short pulls, less comfortable climbing to linebackers in space. The signature is dependability: a tall guard with a wrestler's grip who rarely loses the same way twice.
Gap and duo-based run game that asks the guard to displace a defender vertically rather than reach and run in wide zone.
Year 1: immediate starting right guard in a power scheme. Ceiling: top-12 run-blocking guard and long-term interior anchor.
Outside-zone offense that stresses reach blocks and second-level climbs in space, where his lateral quickness caps him.
His value rises with every extra gap-scheme run call on the sheet.
Tate Ratledge Highlights | 2025 NFL Draft
Pre-draft cutup of his final Georgia seasons at right guard.
Trench Warfare Film Room — Georgia RG Tate Ratledge
Rep-by-rep breakdown of his hand use, anchor and pad level.
Lions Rookie Tate Ratledge Film Review
Rookie-season all-22 look at his run blocking in Detroit.
A five-year Georgia lineman who never played anywhere but right guard, Ratledge is the rare interior prospect whose identity was fully formed before he reached the league. Everything runs through leverage, hand placement and a punishing finish, and he was durable enough in the biggest games of the sport to be trusted immediately.
The production backs the tape. Across 2022-24 he started 36 games and was penalized only three times, allowing five pressures and no sacks on 418 pass-blocking snaps in 2023 and seven pressures with one sack in 311 snaps in 2024. Back-to-back AP All-American and first-team All-SEC honors followed, along with a captaincy voted by 95 percent of the roster. The flags were a 2021 season lost to injury, a 2024 ankle problem that cost four starts, and pad level that drifts high because of his height.
The board had him as a clean top-60 interior blocker rather than a premium athlete, and he tested to that: 4.97 at 6-6 and change with a 32-inch vertical, functional but never explosive. Detroit, replacing a retired All-Pro center and a departed veteran guard, took the safest floor available at 57 and got a plug-and-play starter.
- 01
Grip strength
Latches with heavy, accurate hands and sustains blocks to the whistle; once he connects, defenders rarely disengage before the play is over.
- 02
Anchor
Wide base and functional lower-body power let him absorb bull rush without surrendering the pocket's depth or resetting his feet under duress.
- 03
Down-block displacement
Best trait on tape: generates real movement on duo and gap concepts, rooting nose tackles off their landmark to open interior creases.
- 04
Discipline
Penalized just three times over his final three seasons in the SEC, an unusually clean record for a starter facing that caliber of interior rush.
- 05
Intangibles
Voted captain with 95 percent of the team vote and a five-year fixture at one spot; the intelligence and toughness translate without projection.
- 01
Pad level
At 6-6 he plays tall on too many reps and loses the leverage battle against squatty, low-pad nose tackles who work under his hands.
- 02
Lateral quickness
Struggles to redirect against interior counters and stunts; quick-twitch three-techniques can beat him across his face before he resets.
- 03
Second level
Not a natural climber in space; his blocks on moving linebackers are more collision than sustain when he has ground to cover.
- 04
Durability record
Missed a full season in 2021 and four starts in 2024, so the availability profile carries more risk than the games-played total suggests.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.97sp50
- Vertical
- 32inp50
- Broad jump
- 113inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.38sp50
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 25repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Georgia | 1 |
| 2021 | Georgia | 1 |
| 2022 | Georgia | 15 |
| 2023 | Georgia | 14 |
| 2024 | Georgia | 10 |
| Career | — | 41 |
All 37 career starts came at right guard. Allowed no sacks on 418 pass-blocking snaps in 2023 (PFF).
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Second-Team AP All-American (2023)
- Third-Team AP All-American (2024)
- First-Team All-SEC (2023, 2024)
- CFP National Champion (2021, 2022)
- Team captain (2024)
Dependable every-down guard who wins in the run game and holds up rather than dominates in protection.
Same low-variance, technically clean interior profile with a decade-long starting floor.
Rotational-to-fringe starter if the pad level and lateral issues never get cleaned up.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Detroit worked him at center through the offseason and briefly into camp before deciding the fit was cleaner at his natural spot, moving him back to right guard and sliding veteran Graham Glasgow to the pivot. He started all 17 games as a rookie and logged 1,087 snaps at right guard, the tenth-heaviest workload among NFL guards. The start was rough — Week 1 in Green Bay was a genuine struggle — but the arc bent up. He finished with a 70.3 PFF overall grade, 24th of 81 qualifiers, and a 73.5 run-blocking mark that ranked 12th at the position and second among rookie guards. Over his last 12 games he did not allow a sack and surrendered only four quarterback hits.
The pick looks like what Detroit was buying: a floor, not a ceiling. The pass-protection grade lagged at 58.5, the seven penalties were his sloppiest number, and his own exit interview named pad level as the fix. Heading into 2026 he is being asked to anchor a run game that averaged only 4.16 yards up the middle. Nobody was ever going to call a 57th pick a steal for competence, but a rookie guard who starts every game and blocks the run at a top-15 level is exactly the outcome that slot is supposed to produce.
Data note: All 37 career starts came at right guard. Allowed no sacks on 418 pass-blocking snaps in 2023 (PFF).