In October of 2024, Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alim McNeill signed a four-year, $97 million contract that made him one of the highest-paid defensive tackles in football. He was at the top of his game, coming off an impressive 2023 season, and was still wreaking havoc early in 2024.<\/p>\n
But just over a month after putting pen to paper, McNeill suffered a torn ACL. It cost him the final three games of the 2024 season, a playoff push, and the first seven games of 2025.<\/p>\n
When he returned to the field, McNeill didn\u2019t look like himself. After averaging 3.2 pressure per game in 2024, he managed just 2.3 last season. In 10 games, he managed just 14 tackles, two tackles for loss, and a single sack. By his own admission, it wasn\u2019t up to his standard.<\/p>\n
The frustrating part for McNeill was that while he felt he was in the right mental spot, the body and mind were just not aligned like they needed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just how the body works. It takes time for stuff to come back a little bit,\u201d McNeill said on Friday. \u201cSome stuff was just not there, no matter how hard I tried to do certain stuff, it just wasn\u2019t there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to be that dynamic, explosive player that I know I can be,\u201d McNeill said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve been working on this offseason, and I feel amazing. So I don\u2019t have any doubts about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a night and day difference between last year and now,\u201d McNeill added.<\/p>\n
As for last year, McNeill doesn\u2019t want to think about it anymore. Instead, all he can think about is proving to everyone that he\u2019s still the elite player that earned that contract extension two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think about last year. So, yeah, 1000 percent (I want to prove myself),\u201d McNeill said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember last season. I don\u2019t want to think about last season. So, yeah, 1000 percent. I\u2019ve been losing sleep over it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October of 2024, Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alim McNeill signed a four-year, $97 million contract that made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,23208,23618,1889,7452,7,6],"class_list":["post-905398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-otas","tag-detroit-lions-preseason","tag-detroit-lions-quotes","tag-detroit-lions-training-camp","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116664246217806415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}