Why Detroit Lions' Alex Anzalone is the 'LeBron James of our defense'

Alim McNeill is standing by his locker.

“What does Alex Anzalone mean to your defense?” I ask him.

“He's the LeBron (James) of our defense,” McNeill said.

LeBron? OK, so that's not exactly where I was expecting this conversation to go, and he piqued my interest: “What do you mean?”

“He's really, really good but he's a coach who plays,” McNeill said. “He knows everything that's going on, just everything. He studies film and he knows this defense and he knows football. He's a coach.”

The next day, I ask Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn about Anzalone.

“I love that player,” Glenn said. “I just love everything about Alex.”

So, let’s try to list all the reasons.

First of all, Anzalone is tough as heck.

He’s been playing with cracked ribs since injuring them against the Minnesota Vikings.

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Which he basically shrugged off.

“There's a lot of people fighting through a lot of different things,” Anzalone said. “I did the math this week — 21.”

Yes, he counted 21 guys who are dealing with, well, stuff.

Maybe they aren’t serious enough to go on the injury report but they are still banged up — nobody is completely healthy this time of year. You can't play an NFL season without dealing with something.

To be honest, I was surprised the number wasn’t higher.

You wanna talk about Lions’ Grit?

It starts right there.

So, even though a normal human being would say: Wow, the dude is playing football with cracked ribs, Anzalone just kind of shrugged it off.

He's gotta be great Sunday

Not to put any extra pressure on Anzalone, or at least any more than he would put on himself, but for the Lions to have any shot of beating the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in the NFC championship game, Anzalone has to have a great game.

Not just in his own play — certainly, he plays a critical role in the middle of the field.

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But his calls are just as important — the instantaneous decisions he makes on the field, making adjustments to formations and personnel groups and getting guys into the right spots.

“He’s our defensive quarterback,” McNeill said.

And he’s facing a huge test this week.

San Francisco averaged 398.4 yards per game in the regular season, second in the league behind only Miami (401.3).

The 49ers are the most explosive team in the NFL — they had 74 runs of more than 10 yards and 75 catches of more than 20. But more than half of those were by Christian McCaffrey, who had 48 explosives, the most in the NFL.

“It's hard just because their schemes are really good,” Anzalone said. “They do a lot of shifts and motions, different personnel groupings. Within those personnel groupings, they do different looks. But also they have All-Pro players doing it. It's gonna be hard to defend, but we're up to the challenge.”

He sounds like a coach, doesn’t he?

All those shifts and motions, all those personnel groups will force Anzalone to make different adjustments to the Lions' defense. If he makes the right decisions, the Lions will have a better shot at winning. If he doesn't? Ugh. Don't go there.

“He is the brains,” McNeill said. “He's the smartest player out there. He knows everything that's going on and knows why we're calling this play. What situation we're in so it just helps us out in a lot of different ways.”

From violence to baby duty

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But Anzalone is more than the brains of the Lions' defense.

He’s also the brawn, which is actually something new in his development.

He is playing far more violent than he did when he started his career in New Orleans.

“In New Orleans, we used him more in coverage,” Glenn said. “But here, man, you have to be a really good tackler, violent, physical. And he’s done a really good job with that. It’s not like he didn’t have that, it’s just the fact that we brought that out of him to be able to do that.”

And that violence — even with broken ribs — will be one of the keys to slowing down the 49ers.

Anzalone has 30 straight games with at least five tackles, the longest streak in franchise history since at least 2000.

And he is one of seven NFL players over the past three seasons combined — covering his Lions tenure — to total at least 325 tackles, 15 passes defensed, 15 tackles-for-loss, five sacks and two interceptions. (49ers linebacker Fred Warner is another.)

So, yes, he can do it all.

Even baby duty.

Anzalone and his wife, Lindsey, have a new baby girl. But even that came with a wild story. Anzalone broke his left thumb on Thanksgiving against the Packers, underwent surgery three days later and returned to the hospital three days after that for the birth of his daughter.

“I go home and I'm right on baby duty,” he said. “So there's really no going out to restaurants for me.”

But he admits most of the heavy lifting is done by Lindsey.

“A lot of these nights I'm sleeping in a different bedroom,” Alex said. “She's taking it on the chin as far as baby duties at night. So there's that newborn phase and adjusting to having two, and so on off days, my work is not done when I leave the facility. I'll put it that way.”

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When he’s not on baby duty, Anzalone is preparing for one of the biggest games of his life.

He understands what this game means, not just for the players, but the fans who are starving to get to the Super Bowl.

“You can cement your name in history here,” he said, “our opportunity's right in front of us.”

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.

To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Detroit Lions' Alex Anzalone is the 'LeBron James of our defense'