Allen Park — He knew what it was, and he knew what he wasn’t.
But Alim McNeill also knew he didn’t really have a choice last fall, once the Lions’ defensive tackle was medically cleared to return to play in games.
“No excuses,” he said.
Less than 10 months after suffering a torn ACL in his right knee, McNeill was back in the trenches last October, trying to help the two-time reigning NFC North champs make another run at a Super Bowl.
Yet he can admit now what he wouldn’t then: He wasn’t close to the Pro Bowl-caliber player the Lions had signed to a four-year, $97 million contract extension the year before. The mind and the body were still at odds, and without an offseason to prepare, his strength and conditioning weren’t where they needed to be. As the weeks went by, and the injuries piled up behind him on Detroit’s crumbling defense, that would become more and more apparent, too.
“No matter how hard I tried to do certain things, it just wasn’t there yet,” McNeill said Friday, as the Lions finished up their third OTA workout of the spring.
But now?
“It’s here now,” McNeill said, smiling. “So I’m not thinking about last year at all, honestly. I’m me again now. It’s a night-and-day difference.”
And that’s certainly good news for a Lions team that’s determined to draw the curtains on last season’s first-to-worst tumble in the division.
Because if the mandate from head coach Dan Campbell is to “get back to the business of what it’s about – football, first and foremost,” getting a disruptive force back in the middle of Detroit’s defensive front is a good place to start. And if the goal is to rediscover some of the “no-nonsense” grit that fueled the Lions’ rise in 2023 and ’24, there may not be a better poster boy than McNeill, the soft-spoken, hard-working linchpin from general manager Brad Holmes’ first draft class in 2021.
He’s a player Campbell calls “one of our pillars,” and now that he’s feeling more like his sturdy self, McNeill says he knows the team will be leaning on him more than ever.
“I think Alim will have a great year,” assistant GM Ray Agnew said Friday. “I think he’ll have a bounce-back year.”
All the offseason roster retooling leaves the 26-year-old McNeill as one of the Lions’ longest-tenured players. And while the former third-round pick laughs at the sound of that — “That is kind of wild to think about,” he says — he knows what it means, too.
“Being one of the older guys in the room now, it’s time for me to step up,” he said.
That’s easier to do now, though, because there’s no more guessing about what that next step will feel like. As Campbell noted earlier this spring, “Alim would never say anything about it, but any player that comes off of that (ACL) injury, it’s hard.”
It’s only May, of course, and it’s hard to put much stock into this phase of the offseason that Campbell refers to as a “pajama party,” but McNeill says he can already feel the difference on the practice field. He’s a bit lighter at 310 pounds, but feeling much more explosive, able to “step and plant and go,” knowing that the muscles will fire without a second thought.
“My focus has been what it’s been every offseason, especially when I had my better year in ’23,” said McNeill, who finished with just one sack and two tackles for loss in 10 games last season. “Just to be that dynamic, explosive player that I know I can be. That’s what I’ve been working on this offseason, and I feel amazing. So I don’t have any doubts about that.”
Nor does he hesitate when it comes to the expectations for this revamped defensive line. A year ago, the Lions had the third-slowest time to pressure (2.86 seconds) in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats. The ripple effects of that were felt everywhere, as Detroit fell from seventh in scoring defense in 2024 to 22nd last season.
But the return of McNeill and Levi Onwuzurike, who missed all of last season after ACL surgery following a 2024 breakout, and the additions of free agents D.J. Wonnum and Payton Turner, as well as rookie second-round pick Derrick Moore, should help ratchet up the pressure.
“That is the success up front is the pass rush,” said McNeill, who boasted one of the NFL’s best win rates among interior linemen in 2023 and ’24. “That’s everything. It’s everything. Especially inside. If you don’t have an inside rush, it doesn’t matter what you do. So that’s what I’m here to do and that’s what I’m going to do.”
As for what the team needs to do, McNeill says there’s no gray area there, either. Campbell’s messaging is intentional, but among the core group the sense of urgency was a given after last year’s 9-8 finish and a surprising playoff miss that “just kind of humbled us.”
“Coach didn’t have to tell us that for us to have that,” McNeill said. “As players, we knew that. It’s personal. We knew what it was coming into this year. There’s no sugar-coating it. There’s no hiding behind that. We know what time it is. …
“We have high standards for ourselves here. We just didn’t live up to them. But we’re going to. We’re not worried about that.”
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
@JohnNiyo
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Niyo: Lions’ McNeill in a rush to show he’s truly back: ‘I’m me again’
Reporting by John Niyo, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
