How Aidan Hutchinson of the Detroit Lions perfected his pass rush

It was a 10,000-piece puzzle, a Rubik’s Cube of quick moves, that Aidan Hutchinson tried and tried and tried but couldn’t solve.

Until one game, in Week 7 of his rookie season.

Hutchinson was running from the left end position with the Detroit Lions looking to get off the field in the third and second quarters midway through the third quarter of a tight game against the Dallas Cowboys. He crouched low at the line of scrimmage, shot up as the ball was thrown and took four menacing steps toward the outside arm of right tackle Terence Steele.

Three years later, Hutchinson still can’t explain what happened next, how his massive 6-foot-7-inch, 268-pound body spun inside like a ballerina so fast that Steele didn’t know what happened.

Desperate to stop Hutchinson from pulverizing the quarterback, Steele extended his left leg in an attempt to trip the Lions Pass forward. Hutchinson bruised his fingers on a Dallas right tackle, but kept his balance and lunged toward Dak Prescott’s chest as the Cowboys quarterback stumbled backwards and lost 7 yards.

Bag. Celebration dance. And suddenly Hutchinson had a new favorite move.

“I think the first pivot move I ever made in a game as a major move was Dallas my rookie year when I got fired,” Hutchinson told the Free Press in a recent interview. “I didn’t even do that in practice. I couldn’t figure it out, and then in the game I thought, “Fuck it, let’s try it.” And then I did it and got kicked out during my rookie year. It’s been a staple for me since the Dallas game.”

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Hutchinson leads the NFL with 6½ sacks in the Lions’ game against the Seattle Seahawks on Monday — 1½ more than any other player through the first three weeks of the season.

He has sacks in five straight regular-season games dating back to last December – and in seven of eight games if you include the playoffs – and is on pace to break the single-season sack record of 22.5 TJ Watt and Michael Strahan. and he did it with as wide a range of quick moves as anyone in the NFL.

Hutchinson ran with chip help and dove under the block of Rams right tackle Warren McClendon for his first sack of the season. He racked up 4½ sacks in a Week 2 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coming home with chops, dips and bullpen hits and performing a stunt with Alim McNeill.

Last week against the Arizona Cardinals, Hutchinson used his spin move again, ran forward towards the outside shoulder of left tackle Paris Johnson and clipped Johnson’s left arm, knocking him off balance as he spun inside to choke Kyler Murray for a 7-yard loss .

“Spin is kind of a timing thing and I could never figure out when it was going to happen in college, in the NFL, and then it had to be weeks of practice, and this week it finally clicked and that’s when I got my first time in the game,” he said Hutchinson. “A lot of guys spin too early, but you can’t just spin and they don’t shoot with their hands and they just wait for you and pick you up.

“So I try to do it at the last possible second, when they’re already engaged in what they think I’m going to do, and then right away (at the last second I turn). I mean, sometimes it feels like it’s too late, but in the end it works out and it’s fine.

Hutchinson has a rich toolbox as a pass rusher.

It’s big and relentless. He’s playing on an engine that, according to Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield, “has no off switch.” He is dangerous from both endpoints, and on rare occasions he lines up on the inside of the Lions defensive line. He also has excellent body control, which is what makes his rotational movements so effective, and that he attributes at least part of it to another sport.

“I feel like whenever I was growing up playing lacrosse, I was always spinning and it was always a very natural thing for me to just get out of control,” Hutchinson said. “I knew once I understood it that it would be a good move for me because for some reason my body naturally moves very well with this move.”

Every Lions Pass player has the right move to suit their body type, position and skill set.

Marcus Davenport is big and long and loves power. Levi Onwuzurike is great at attacking from the inside. Kyle Peko bullfights for a living.

Hutchinson’s commitment to the rotation came after much trial and error and with help from some of his position coaches in the NFL. Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn said Hutchinson liked outside rotation but has now perfected inside rotation. Both Hutchinson’s sacking in Dallas as a rookie and the one he received last week against the Cardinals were driven by internal moves.

Occasionally, Hutchinson will vary his turns with a jab or chop.

“You have to be careful not to give a guy so many moves that he doesn’t do one or two moves perfectly,” Glenn said. “We try to do that with all our players, and you try to do it with the defensive backs, asking, ‘What’s your kid like?’ When the two minutes are up and they know what you’re getting into, I know what I’m getting into. What is your movement at the line of scrimmage? What is your move as an attacker? And they know you’ll do it, I know I’ll do it, who will win? We also try to make sure we’re not taking that away from the guy, if that makes sense.

Hutchinson is rare because his baby looks more like identical triplets and is no longer in a diaper.

He likes turnovers, but opposing offensive linemen have started “to kind of expect turnovers, and then that opens up the advantage move, which opens up new opportunities that I can kind of take advantage of.”

“I think the biggest thing about him is everything comes out of the same tunnel,” Lions offensive lineman Dan Skipper said. “So I have a baseball background, so all pitchers talk about everything that comes out of the same tunnel. Hutch has been doing better and better over the last few years, and this year it’s all the same. Everything looks the same until it hits, so you can rip, spin, bull or jump in and it will all come out the same. That’s what’s so impressive.”

Now that he’s a master of disguise and a rusher who’s learned that his spin moves look like his fast bull and his dips and rips look like spins, Hutchinson is working on adding more to his arsenal as he chases down more sacks.

He said he had been working on a new move in the offseason, which he tried once during the Lions’ Week 1 win against the Rams. It’s nothing revolutionary and nothing he wants to do to his opponents just yet, but it could help him elevate his game another notch, which seems absurd considering his streak.

“It’s funny, I’m talking to the guys after our game and it seems like some of them have it all figured out and actually that’s not true and they’re still experimenting,” Hutchinson said. “Guys who have been in this league for 10 years are still experimenting with this and that. And that’s why I respect those guys who are constantly trying to grow and evolve in their game, because some people just say, “Hey, I’m going to make this one move and you have to stop it,” you know what I mean? And I’m going to continue to do that and continue to do that, but some guys do that, they try to grow and evolve over time, which I definitely respect.

Dave Birkett is the author of the new book “Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline.” Pre-order it now from Reedy Press.

Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.