Stanford DT Harrison Phillips would be an instant upgrade for Lions

The worst thing that ever happened to Harrison Phillips on the football field might turn out to be the best thing for his career.

Phillips, one of the top defensive tackles in this year’s draft, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in Stanford’s 2015 season opener against Northwestern.

The Cardinal lost two games that season — the opener, when Northwestern rallied to win after Phillips' injury, and a two-point game to Oregon when they gave up 231 yards rushing — and Phillips said he believes Stanford "could have won a national championship that year if I didn’t get hurt."

But while he was out, Phillips, with a nudge from coaches, developed a new appreciation for the nuance of the game.

"I felt like I wasn’t contributing to the team and it was really hard for me, so I met with our coaching staff and they said, ‘Hey, you can help us break down the film,’” Phillips said. “And so I was working, doing center-back splits. I was figuring out are people sliding to the field, to the boundary, where’s the strength, where’s all this stuff. So I was charting all that, I would give it to our (graduate assistants) and they would give it to the players to use, and I realized how much more helpful that was."

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It was during that time that Phillips said he started to realize what film study meant to an individual player’s success, and ever since he's made that a big part of his routine.

"I’d go watch a game on the sideline and I’d be like, ‘Whoa, I know what this play’s going to be,’ and then the play would happen,” Phillips said. "So there was just a thing that clicked. I was like, all this stuff matters. And so the more I worked on it, the more I felt better, and this season it just all came along."

In his final college season last year, Phillips emerged as one of the best interior linemen in the nation.

He was a third-team All-American at defensive tackle, and he led the Cardinal with a whopping 103 tackles — a significant number for an interior lineman; Ndamukong Suh, for comparison, had 85 in the same amount of games in his final season at Nebraska – 17 for loss, and 7.5 sacks.

"I credited it to film study and a lot of the tendencies we get," Phillips said. "So as much as I could coming out of timeouts or when the ball would be slowed down a little bit more I would figure out if it was 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends) and I would find out where the running back-tight end split is and I would say, 'I’ve seen this on film before, this is going to be power. I know I’m about to be double-teamed.' Or, 'I know this guard’s about to pull.' If you watch my tape, you can see it on film where the ball is just being snapped and my eyes are already moving without even reading the block. I know it’s going to come, and that’s what helped to my 18 TFLs. A lot of those came from anticipation."

Phillips had big games last season against USC (11 tackles), Washington State (2.5 TFLs) and Notre Dame, where he had two sacks and battled guard Quenton Nelson, the draft's top offensive lineman, to a draw.

At the Senior Bowl, he measured 6 feet 3 and 303 pounds, and was one of the top performers during the first two days of practice. He's expected to shine at the NFL combine in March as well, where, he said, his personal best in the 225-pound bench press is an impressive 45 reps.

"I can play pretty much over anybody,” Phillips said. “Not necessarily (as) an edge rusher, but I can play three (technique), one, shade, head-up tackle. I feel confident in all those areas."

Phillips said he met with Lions scouts on Monday at the Senior Bowl, and while that's not news in itself — the team meets with just about every prospect at postseason all-star games — the Lions do have a major need on their defensive line.

Top defensive tackle Haloti Ngata said he hopes to play one more season in Detroit, but he’s a free agent and at 34 years old hasn’t played a full NFL season since 2011. A’Shawn Robinson didn’t take the major step forward in his second season that some expected. And the Lions will be installing a new defense in 2018 that places a premium on big nose tackles and especially intelligent players, one that Phillips would seem like a natural fit for.

"I think there’s a stereotype that I’m not athletic,” Phillips said. “Like, I’m just a tough, hard-working slow guy and stiff. I want to show people that I’m a lot more athletic than they think I am and will be a dynamic pass rusher."

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our Lions Xtra app for free on Apple and Android!