Dave BirkettDetroit Free Press
Alim McNeill had a career-high five sacks last season and is one of the key cogs in a Detroit Lions run defense that's among the best in the NFL. McNeill, in his fourth season with the Lions, talked with the Free Press for this week's five questions.
Some questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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The Detroit Tigers are hot right now. You're a baseball guy. If you had 20 pitches against Tarik Skubal, how many are you making contact with?
McNeill: Contact, out of 20 pitches? Probably make contact with 13, 14 of them. I mean, I’m going to foul a lot of them off. I’m going to make contact at least, though. But I’m for sure striking on about six of them.
How many hits are you getting?
McNeill: Out of the 14 that I make contact with, probably four hits. I’ll be realistic. But I’m fouling some of them off.
That's pretty good. He's going to win the Cy Young this year.
McNeill: I can see the ball enough to be able to maybe throw my hands at it, but put it in play, I don’t know anymore. I don’t know. It’s been a minute. Cy Young winner, I don’t know.
Let's stay with baseball. Home run derby with you, D.J. Reader and Dan Skipper, who wins?
McNeill: Me. Every day of the week. Every day of the week. D.J. will tell you otherwise, but me, every day of the week. I’ve been trying to do this, too. We’ll probably do it in the offseason sometime. But yeah, me.
He played at Clemson, though.
McNeill: That’s what it is, cause he got the opportunity to play at Clemson. I didn’t get the opportunity to play at (North Carolina) State. Things went another way, so I couldn’t do that. But it’s definitely me.
What's the most painful injury you've ever had?
McNeill: Last year (spraining the MCL in) my knee was the most painful injury I had. Yeah, definitely my knee.
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Describe the pain.
McNeill: It was just like a sharp — it shot all the way down the inside of the my knee, vs. the Saints last year. I don’t even know how to describe that pain. I just couldn’t put no weight on it and when you have an injury like that and knock on wood, I haven’t really had that many injuries so having it was kind of weird cause I’ve never missed any games so that type of pain was a little different cause you realize you use things in your knee that you didn’t know you needed to use when you walk.
Did you feel the pain right away, like you knew it was bad immediately?
McNeill: Well, actually I didn’t. I didn’t know till after the game. I came back and played the rest of the game, but I didn’t know till after the game what I had did to my knee. Adrenaline was rushing and stuff at the time, but after that, when it wore off, yeah.
It's almost Halloween. What's the best and worst Halloween candy?
McNeill: The best is Reese’s (peanut butter) cups. The worst is candy corn. That’s trash. I don’t even know why they make that. ... I tried it one time as a kid and that was the last time I ever had it. It was trash.
You dropped a lot of weight last year. Does the new Alim still eat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?
McNeill: I still eat the Reese’s cups to this day, yeah, no doubt. Candy corn, I haven’t even seen candy corn in a while.
Do you still make music?
McNeill: I do. On the side, I do.
How'd you get started with that?
McNeill: It was when I got my first laptop in college, honestly, that’s when I started. One of my friends had let me download some software that he had, and ever since then I started and I just learned how to make my own beats and then I learned how to mix and master my own vocals.
Were you interested in music before college?
McNeill: Yeah, 100%, way before that when I was a kid. My did used to DJ all the time growing up for fun, in the house, so ever since then I just kind of had it.
Did he work as a DJ?
McNeill: He would just do it in the house. He just loved doing it. Growing up he would, like when he was a teen or whatever, he just kept his equipment with him.
Last one. Who's the most famous non-NFL person you have in your phone?
McNeill: Probably – it’s an artist from here, Dej Loaf. She’s probably the most famous non-NFL in my phone.
How do you know her?
McNeill: I just met her through, like everybody else did on Instagram, but she had followed me 'cause she’s from Detroit and she’s a Lions fan, so it was just a connection there. Lions player. And then she made music, I made music, so I had hit her up to see if we could get a song or whatever going, and that’s how we started.
Do you guys have one coming?
McNeill: Not yet. There was a chance that we had something, but I just didn’t want to do it on that song yet.
Dave Birkett will sign copies of his new book, "Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline" at 7 p.m. Saturday at J. Gilligan's Bar & Grill in Arlington, Tx.
Contact Dave Birkett atdbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at@davebirkett.
