How good are Detroit Lions' defensive upgrades? 'It's almost like we're playing Madden'

Alim McNeill likes what the Detroit Lions did in free agency, adding three new starters to their secondary and re-signing key depth pieces in the front seven in Isaiah Buggs, John Cominsky and Alex Anzalone.

“Yeah, 100%,” the defensive lineman said Tuesday after the Lions’ second voluntary workout of the offseason. “It’s almost like we’re playing Madden, we adding some pieces for sure. I’m excited to see what we can do.”

The Lions finished last in the NFL in total defense last season but project to have at least four new starters there: Free agent additions C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Cam Sutton and Emmanuel Moseley and second-year linebacker James Houston, who had 8½ sacks last season as a rookie backup.

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Add in the return of safety Tracy Walker from a torn Achilles tendon, with more help sure to come in the draft, and McNeill said it’s “exciting” to think of how improved the unit can be.

“Oh, I think we can be a ton better,” McNeill said. “Just getting another year under A.G. (defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn) as well and adding pieces, adding dogs like that, that have been through other places and already know what’s going on, they’ve got experience, they’ve seen it all. And just to be able to add them to the fire, I think it’ll be pretty good.”

Along with the new additions, McNeill said he expects improvements from returning starters such as himself.

The third-year defensive tackle had 41 tackles and a sack in 17 games last season while splitting his time between three technique and nose tackle.

While his exact role this season could hinge on who the Lions add in the draft, McNeill, a third-round pick out of North Carolina State in 2021, said he has taken steps to ensure the most productive season of his career.

This offseason, McNeill changed his diet, drinking more water and eliminating red meat and candy, and added a three-times-a-day stretching routine to his regiment to improve hip flexibility. As part of his stretching, McNeill does yoga every Friday.

He still plans to play this fall at about 325 pounds, but said he will be “added more muscle on and kind of took off a lot of the fat” and will be able “to move a lot faster” now.

“As far as how I’m feeling and stuff, I feel so much better,” he said. “I’m a lot more lean, I’m a lot more flexible, can bend and stuff a lot better now. I was just talking to one of my guys about it, and he was asking me how I felt, too. I was like, ‘I just feel lean, I just feel faster, I just feel a lot better.’ ”

Puppy love

Taylor Decker has been a mainstay on the Lions’ offensive line since 2016, when he entered the league as a draft classmate of Graham Glasgow’s. But Decker said Tuesday he wasn’t the only one excited the Lions re-signed Glasgow as a free agent this spring.

“He’s one of my best friends and at my wedding, Jonah (Jackson) came up to me after talking to Graham, cause Graham, he’s got an interesting sense of humor,” Decker said. “He was like, ‘Man, I would love it if that guy came to Detroit.’ … And fast forward, here we are. He’s coming to Detroit, and he’s going to fit in great. It’s going to be great.”

Glasgow, who left the Lions in 2020 to spend the past three seasons with the Denver Broncos, is expected to compete with Halapoulivaati Vaitai for the starting job at right guard and serve as the Lions’ do-everything interior backup.

Vaitai missed all of last season with a back injury and took a pay cut to stay in Detroit this offseason.

“I don’t even know if I’m supposed to say this, I’m impressed with where he is at moving, lifting, running,” Decker said. “I mean, having a back surgery, he looks good. I guess that’s all I’ll say on that.”

Just as important as his play on the field, Decker said, is what having Vaitai around means to the Lions locker room.

“He’s the personality in the room that he kind of keeps things light,” Decker said. “I say this lovingly about Big V, I think he’s about to turn 30, he’s like a 30-year-old kid. He’s just a big kid and he’s literally just having fun and he likes hanging out with his friends. Like, it’s — he just keeps it light, cause obviously in season things can get tense and stuff like that. So we’re just excited to have him back. I just, I think he’s like a big golden retriever — and I have a golden retriever.

Carpool craziness

Decker had an interesting experience returning to Detroit for the start of the Lions’ offseason program. He said he ordered an Uber after he landed at Detroit Metro Airport and got to the ride-share lane just as the car was taking off — with someone else inside.

“So I text the lady and she was like, ‘What do you mean? You’re in the car.’ ” Decker said. “I was like, ‘No I’m not.’ Somebody tried to take my Uber and was about to come to the Lions facility. She had to loop back around. I guess the guy got in the car, she rolled the window down, said, ‘Are you Taylor?’ The guy had headphones on, he was just like, ‘Yeah,’ and just got in the car. So I was like, ‘All right, we’re back.’ ”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' defensive additions have DL Alim McNeill pumped up