{"id":637,"date":"2024-06-06T19:19:38","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T13:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=444673"},"modified":"2024-06-06T19:19:38","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T13:49:38","slug":"detroit-lions-considering-creative-way-to-use-alim-mcneill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/other-sports\/detroit-lions-considering-creative-way-to-use-alim-mcneill\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions considering creative way to use Alim McNeill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Detroit Lions defensive lineman Alim McNeill had a breakout campaign in 2023, establishing himself as a key member of the team\u2019s defense. But could the former third-round pick make a surprising appearance on offense in 2024? It\u2019s something the team is contemplating.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Dan Campbell revealed ahead of the second minicamp practice on Wednesday that the Lions are considering using McNeill as a fullback, given that the team currently doesn\u2019t have one on the roster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe like a fullback, if it makes sense and it\u2019s somebody we know can help us at that position and can dictate to the defense,\u201d Campbell said, according to Jeremy Reisman of Pride of Detroit. \u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019re trying to do. It forces a defense into a look you want, usually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Campbell continued, \u201cMac can do it. It\u2019s just a matter of do you want to do that? He can do it. It\u2019s just, alright how many plays did he just play on this last drive you know? Was this a ten-play drive? Does he got his energy back to run out there at fullback? We\u2019ve talked about it for a while so you never know, we could throw him in there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Besides McNeill, Campbell mentioned that the team is also considering utilizing its tight ends in the fullback role, which would be a more conventional approach. Linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez is another candidate, having been used as a fullback at times during the 2023 season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"und\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udc40\ud83d\udc40\u203c\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7fv3gVB1Ot\">pic.twitter.com\/7fv3gVB1Ot<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Alim McNeill (@AlimMcneill) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlimMcneill\/status\/911778195460034560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 24, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRodrigo is playing, he\u2019s at the linebacker position competing. We\u2019ve got a stable full of tight ends that we\u2019re working with a little bit. So that (fullback) could be a tight end, it could be one of those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Using a defensive lineman as a fullback isn\u2019t unheard of, and McNeill did see some action in the backfield during his high school days. However, given his primary responsibilities on defense, any offensive snaps he gets would likely be limited and situational.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Detroit Lions defensive lineman Alim McNeill had a breakout campaign in 2023, establishing himself as a key member of the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":23775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3819],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-sports","tag-detroit-lions"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}