About a month ago, Kelvin Sheppard approached Alim McNeill about the possibility of playing big defensive end, "and his face lit up," Sheppard said. McNeill, a 310-pound defensive tackle, had long wondered "what it's like out there with all that space" for edge rushers like Aidan Hutchinson and Marcus Davenport. Last Sunday, he got to find out.
McNeill played 17 snaps on the outside of the defensive line in the Lions' loss to the Eagles, as many as he had played through the first four and a half years of his career. The idea was originally borne of an injury to Pat O'Connor, who had been playing the big end in Detroit's defense, and became Sheppard's solution to a good problem in the trenches: McNeill, Tyleik Williams, DJ Reader and Roy Lopez all deserve to play.
"Not trying to force anybody on the field, but if there is a why and a legit reason behind it, we’ll make it happen," Sheppard said. "The whole plan is to put your best 11 out there, and I’m afforded the opportunity to coach at an organization that believes in that as well. They don’t care. Dan (Campbell) has never said one time, 'Why is this guy (playing), why didn’t that guy play?' He has full faith, trust, and belief that we’re going to put these players in the best positions possible."
Truth is, this vision goes back years. Sheppard has seen big-end potential in McNeill from basically the day he showed up: "He's an ultra athlete. He's not just a defensive tackle." McNeill was a linebacker and running back in high school -- and an all-conference baseball player, he'll have you know -- and didn't even play on the D-line until he got to NC State. When he arrived in Detroit in 2021, Campbell, Sheppard and the rest of the coaches started calling him the "dancing bear."
"He’s light on his feet, he’s explosive. His first steps -- just as fast as our defensive end room. Yeah, I said it," Sheppard grinned. "Just as fast."
McNeill has spent most his career sparring with guards and centers as a 3-tech in the Lions' defense, which is where he earned a $97 million extension and where he will continue to butter his bread. At times last Sunday, he was taking on star tackles Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata, and later Fred Johnson after Lane Johnson got hurt. He helped the Lions put together arguably their best defensive performance of the season, limiting Saquon Barkley to 3.2 yards per carry and Philly's offense to under 4.0 yards per play.
"It’s different, its way different than playing the 3," McNeill said Thursday. "A lot more space … I knew I could play it, but you don’t (really) know until you do it, so it’s good to have that availability. I can switch out and go out there and we can get in different packages and looks and stuff now. It feels good."
The bulk of McNeill's season-high 67 snaps last Sunday still came on the interior. As Sheppard reminded him this week, "Don’t get too comfortable out there, you’re still a defensive tackle." With defensive ends Marcus Davenport and Josh Paschal nearing returns from injuries, the Lions figure to scale back McNeill's (and likely Tyler Lacy's) reps on the edge. But given Davenport's and Paschal's troubles to stay healthy, it only helps to know that McNeill can bounce back out there if need be.
McNeill is still mixing in big-end reps at practice, "working some stuff this week to try to get an edge more." He plans to "keep doing it until they tell me not to." For McNeill, the biggest adjustment rushing from the outside is the extra number of steps he takes before hitting a block and learning how "to time it with my hands." He was pleased with a "couple pressing-the-pocket reps that I had on the right side" against the Eagles. He also got off a couple blocks on stuffs of Barkley.
"I like him out there, man, he’s doing good," said Reader, the biggest man on Detroit's defense. "He had some good power rushes. Hellish in the run game. My boy Leem can do it all. You know he’s from Carolina, man!"
(The only thing that McNeill can't do, said Reader, a fellow baseball star from North Carolina who was also a pitcher and first baseman at Clemson, is strike him out: "There’s only, like, nine people in high school that got that luxury, so no way." Reader, for the record, hit ".575 as a senior, .529 as a junior, .488 as a sophomore, and I think .482 as a freshman," but who's counting.)
McNeill rushes with more power than the typical defensive end. He smiled and said he's fine-tuning his stance, "trying to look like Hutch out there." He could feel Philly's offensive tackles blocking him like guards would, jumping him off the ball to counter his strength. He liked knowing that there wasn't a defensive lineman outside of him, "so I can just fight this block here and not worry about someone coming to take my hip out and take me out." Life in the trenches is tough.
Still, that's where McNeill will make the biggest impact for the Lions, whose defense ranks fifth in the NFL and is only getting stronger. While he cut more than 20 pounds a few years ago to transition from the nose to the 3-tech and
level up as a pass-rusher, he laughed and said he's good with the weight that he's at, even when he plays the (very, very) big end.
"It would help me as a pass-rusher, but then when I go back down to the 3 and I’m taking on the double team and they got me in the back of the end zone it’s not gonna look good," said McNeill.
In McNeill, Reader, Williams and Lopez, the Lions have four disrupters on the interior. The latter two, in particular, have demanded more playing time of late, which left Sheppard with a simple question: "Well, how are you going to get these guys on the field?"
The answer, last week anyway, was to hardly take McNeill off of it.