Copyright M Live Michigan
ALLEN PARK -- It didn’t take long for Tate Ratledge to quickly establish himself as “one of the boys” inside the Detroit Lions locker room. In various interviews since training camp, several of his teammates acknowledge the sense of humor he’s brought to the team. Proof of that is that he’s often seen laughing, sharing with players from both sides of the ball. While having a great locker room personality certainly is a plus for the Lions’ culture, Ratledge has brought more than laughs and one of the league’s best mullets. Selected by the Lions in the second round of this year’s NFL draft out of Georgia, the 6-foot-6, 315-pound rookie has brought his ferocious play to the offense, as evidenced by his being a day one starter. Before the Lions went into their bye week, MLive chatted with the former Bulldog for this week’s five questions segment. Which veteran have you leaned on most so far in the locker room, and how have they helped you grow in this league? I think that’s a hard issue. There’s multiple of ’em. I mean, you got Graham (Glasgow), (Taylor) Decker, Penei (Sewell) -- all of them. I mean, anytime something comes up or I’m having trouble with something, I go to one of them, and they’ve all been tremendous helping me out. A couple of guys during preseason said you were the team jokester -- always getting the guys to laugh. What makes you that guy? I don’t know if I’d call myself the team jokester. I just feel like I got a pretty good sense of humor. So far being in this league, what’s the one thing you’ve learned from playing your position at a higher level? It’s a lot faster than college. That’s the one thing. And it’s like in college, especially when we were at Georgia, you played teams that were considered not as good — like this, that, and the other -- and it was kind of like a week off, but not really. I mean, everybody that steps on that field’s good. That’s probably the biggest thing. What do you think the average fan doesn’t appreciate about being a offensive lineman? You guys don’t have stats that show up in the box score -- what’s something they might not realize about the hard work that goes into it? I think it’s just every game’s a war. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing or who it’s against -- every game, it’s a war, and it’s us versus that defensive line, that defensive group. So I think it’s just every game -- if you’re not ready to go, it’s not going to turn out well for you. Do you have any funny stories or first impressions from a meeting with Dan Campbell that stuck with you -- maybe something that surprised you? I’d say for me, it was when I walked into my pre-draft meeting with him at the combine. I’d always been a big fan of Coach Campbell. He runs his program how I like programs to be ran, and I always felt like this would be a good place for me. And it was kind of just meeting him for the first time -- it was kind of surreal. I knew I was always a big fan of him, seeing how he talked to his team, seeing how he talks to the media, and seeing what his team’s about.
