{"id":275176,"date":"2025-10-03T18:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T18:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/275176\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T18:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T18:06:09","slug":"lions-injury-update-alim-mcneill-50-50-to-play-vs-bengals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/275176\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions injury update: Alim McNeill \u201850\/50\u2019 to play vs. Bengals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Lions started their 21-day injury evaluation clock on star defensive tackle Alim McNeill<\/a> on Wednesday, as the team gauges his health and attempts to determine when he could return. While it would be a bit unusual to see a player returning from a long-term injury work through the acclimation process quickly, Lions coaches have raved about where he\u2019s at physically, and on Friday, coach Dan Campbell said the chances of him playing against the Cincinnati Bengals this Sunday were 50\/50.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know, man,\u201d Campbell said on Friday. \u201cI think right now, it\u2019s probably 50\/50. I know he wants to play, but we want to be smart, too. So this\u2019ll be one of those decisions we\u2019ll probably make after practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNeill has been limited in both his practices this week as the Lions work to get him adjusted back to game action, but the sports science team has collected a lot of data on his health, and coaches appear to like what they\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a lot of data on him right now,\u201d Campbell continued. \u201cCertainly (we\u2019ll consider), what he says\u2014How does he feel? What\u2019s his comfort level? Confidence? But also being smart with it. We kind of worked him in on Wednesday, and he got a lot more reps yesterday, and today he\u2019s going to get more reps, but it won\u2019t be near as many. And that\u2019s really where we\u2019re at with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s common for coaches to want to see a full practice out of a player before returning him from an injury list, and Campbell, alluding to the fact he\u2019ll see even less work on Friday, suggests McNeill won\u2019t get a full practice this week. But there could still be value in returning McNeill, even if he\u2019s not ready to contribute at full capacity just yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest ways is just seeing the guy and being around him,\u201d Campbell said of McNeill helping rookie Tyleik Williams improve his game. \u201cYou can only learn so much from a coach. You work the craft, you teach them. Here\u2019s the scheme, here\u2019s the technique. But coaches can\u2019t always go out and physically show you exactly what you\u2019re doing in real time. A guy like Mac or (Aidan) Hutch(enson) or some of these (other veterans can show him): this is what it needs to look like. This is what it looks like. I think every player, another good player\u2019s back in the fold, and you watch how they work, perform, how they use their body, their mechanics, you start to mimic some of those things into your own game, because you can see it. You see it every day on tape, you see it on the field. So that\u2019s where I think it really can help.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lions will hold their final practice of the week on Friday afternoon, and the injury report will likely be released between 3:30 and 4 p.m. ET. It\u2019s likely we\u2019ll get a clearer picture on McNeill\u2019s status then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions started their 21-day injury evaluation clock on star defensive tackle Alim McNeill on Wednesday, as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":275177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49994,27705,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-275176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-detroit-lions-injury-report","9":"tag-detroit-lions-news","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115311567663740202","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}