A year ago, Alim McNeill was like a kid suspended from recess. While his teammates worked out all winter and then raced onto the field in the spring, McNeill "couldn’t really train and run and stuff like that to get the fat off you," he said Friday. "I’ve been able to do that (this year): eat good, feel good, sleep good." And now, a full season removed from tearing his ACL in December of 2024, the Dancing Bear is emerging from his slumber.
In fact, it's been a restless few months for McNeill, who returned with a bang last season and then went quietly into the night.
"I don’t remember last season, I don’t want to think about last season," McNeill said after the Lions' third practice of OTA's. "I’ve been losing sleep over it."
Which Lions player is poised for a big year? pic.twitter.com/HpLsPSFLl6
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When McNeill went down late in the 2024 season, so did the Lions. His injury was the fatal blow to a decimated defense, which finally collapsed in the playoffs. McNeill was playing like one of those game-wreckers on the interior, putting his own stamp on the $97 million extension he'd signed earlier that season. The hope when he returned in 2025 was that he wouldn't miss a beat.
He didn't for one night. Fueled by fresh legs and adrenaline in his season debut in Week 7, McNeill wreaked havoc on the Buccaneers' offensive line in one of the Lions' most complete performances of the year. Baker Mayfield spent most of the first half fleeing pressure up the gut. McNeill wasn't the same from there on out, except for maybe in Detroit's Thanksgiving loss to the Packers.
It's exactly why McNeill hates thinking about it so much: that wasn't him. He was wearing his No. 54 jersey, stuck in someone else's body.
"I’m me again now," said McNeill. "Explosive and being able to do what I need to do. Yeah, it’s a night-and-day difference between last year and now."
McNeill said late last season that he felt more limited mentally than physically, that he was just overthinking at times and trying to do too much, that his surgically repaired knee wasn't any hindrance at all. That was the honorable response for a handsomely-paid player who didn't want to make excuses. The honest one, it turns out, is that "no matter how hard I tried to do certain stuff, it just wasn’t there yet. And it’s here now," McNeill said Thursday.
"It’s just how the body works," he said.
McNeill knew what he wanted his body to do; it had done it before. He wanted it to shed guards and centers with a sudden step here, a violent swipe there. He wanted it to bend and bulldoze and burst off the ball like it did in 2023 and 2024 when he emerged as one of the top pass-rushing defensive tackles in the NFL.
His brain just wouldn't fully allow it.
That's the difference, he said, "being able to connect the mind and the body, my brain knowing that this leg is good and I can step and plant here. It was more neurological, getting that muscle to fire with this, than anything. Now I have that connection (again). It’s just easier now."
McNeill finished with one sack in 10 games last season. He had zero quarterback pressures in four games, twice as many as the prior two seasons combined. The Lions struggled to generate pressure up the middle for most of the year, which happens to be the fastest path to the quarterback. After grading out as a top-10 defensive tackle in 2023 and 2024, McNeill ranked outside the top 65 players at his position, per PFF.
Aidan Hutchinson on teaming up with Derrick Moore: "I tell you what, Michigan is starting to become the pathway to the Lions."
Says they got some work in together at Schembechler before OTA's: pic.twitter.com/Y4Fo0X8Lgc
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Much will be made over the next several months of the Lions' new tandem of edge rushers opposite Aidan Hutchinson. And certainly, free agent D.J. Wonnum and second-round pick Derrick Moore will be key to Detroit's success up front. But McNeill stands to make the biggest impact on the defense, simply by getting back to himself.
"That is the success up front, is the pass rush. That’s everything, especially inside," he said. "If you don’t have an inside rush, it doesn’t really matter what you do. That’s what I’m here to do, and that’s what I’m going to do."
Nothing went according to plan last year for the Lions, who went 2-6 in November and December and crashed out of the playoff race. McNeill admits that it "humbled us in a way," and "added that much more motivation" this offseason. The plan this year, for McNeill, is "to be that dynamic, explosive player that I know I can be."
"We know what’s at stake," he said. "We know what type of players we have, coaches we have. We have high standards for ourselves, we just didn’t live up to that. But we’re going to. I’m not worried about that."
