Defensive Tackle · Detroit Lions

Alim McNeill

No. 54 · 6th season

McNeill has never been fully right, and that might be about to change

He tore his ACL in December of 2024. Then came the long wait — the kind where every week is a question you can't answer yet.

Alim McNeill plays defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions, which means his job is to be a problem in the middle of the line — the kind of player an offense has to account for before anything else. When that's missing, the whole defense feels it.

He wasn't cleared to return until midway through 2025, and even then he was never fully healthy. A player grinding through a season at something less than themselves is a specific kind of hard — the frustration of being out there but not all the way back.

Head coach Dan Campbell has said plainly that a healthy McNeill matters to this defense. That's not nothing coming from Campbell. The Lions have had to find answers in the middle without him at full strength, and those answers have had limits.

What we're watching now is whether McNeill's body finally catches up to his role. A defensive line gets its personality from its center. The Lions have been waiting to find out who they really are up front.

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