After his first padded practice with the Lions, Alim McNeill walked off the field with blood on his jersey and a smile on his face. He had spent the morning sparring with All-Pro center Frank Ragnow, who called the rookie defensive tackle surprisingly “twitchy for how big he is.” McNeill deemed it an honest day’s work of “being physical, getting hands on people, doing my job.”
“There are some things I need to work on,” he said, “but I was definitely not scared out there or anything.”
As McNeill recalls, he wasn’t the only rookie who rose to the challenge when the pads came on three yeas ago. He said he “knew something was a little crazy about our class” after he saw Amon-Ra St. Brown hurdle Jeff Okudahin a one-on-one tackling drill — “I swear it was our first padded practice,” he said — and Penei Sewell get down to business on the other side of …