DETROIT — The sight of him here in person, resurfacing for the first time since the Michigan air was brisk and the leaves had turned colors for the fall, feels almost as surprising as it does familiar.
For months, Aidan Hutchinson was a myth. An unknown lurking in the shadows. The final chapter of a potential storybook finish — should his team do the impossible and pave the way for his triumphant return at the Super Bowl.
But things didn’t play out that way. It’s not often you can say that about the things Hutchinson wants out of life.
“I feel like it’s those trials and tribulations that really kind of mature you as a person, as a player,” Hutchinson said in May, speaking with local media for the first time since breaking his leg last October. “It was a tough rehab, and I feel like now that I’m on the other side of it, looking back, you’re kind of grateful for those experiences because it formed you into the person you are today.”
Those are the words of a man who has discovered gratitude during his time away from a sport that consumes him. Hutchinson is back to his old ways. He is once again off to a torrid start. He’s reclaimed his spot as one of the league’s most-feared edge rushers, the way everyone in his life knew he would.
How did he do it?
The only way he knows how.
A note of cruel irony accompanied the play that ended the season Hutchinson had always envisioned.
It was Week 6 of the 2024 season and the Lions were in Dallas, running up the score on the Cowboys in their own building. Up 34-6 in the third quarter, Hutchinson leaned forward, touched the turf and peeled back. The end result gave him a league-leading 7.5 sacks in five games — a 17-game pace of 25.5. The 2022 No. 2 overall pick was playing the best football of his life — a true breakout in the making and an ascension into the NFL’s truly elite tier.
But Hutchinson was slow to emerge after sacking Dak Prescott. Something wasn’t right.
For what felt like an eternity, he would lie still on his side, wondering what was happening. A stinger? Maybe a bad bruise? That’s all it was, right?
He reached for his left leg, in search of answers. He quickly found one.
“It’s broken,” Hutchinson said to himself.
Hutchinson stared at the cleats of his teammates, suddenly gathering around him as the scene unfolded. He yelled for help. Athletic trainers rushed to the field. His leg was put in an air cast and he was carted off the field. He remained in the Dallas area days after the game and had surgery to repair a broken tibia and fibula at Baylor White Medical Center in Irving.
His timeline to return? Four-to-six months.
Detroit’s locker room, after a 47-9 win, was somber. The Lions won a football game, but lost one of their best.
“When you see a man like that coming in each and every day, willing and wanting to be great, and we all know injuries come with this game, but still, like, all that hard work is just — that’s why I’m sad the most,” Penei Sewell said after that game. “Just because I know what kind of player he is and I know how much work he puts in and what sacrifices he makes.”
Hutchinson knew something wasn’t right after he sacked Dak Prescott in the Week 6 game last season against the Cowboys. (Kevin Jairaj / Imagn Images)
As the realization began to set in, Hutchinson could barely breathe. The world was spinning faster. He ripped his gloves off and threw them in a rare moment of frustration. When he thinks back to that moment, Hutchinson says he felt like he couldn’t be in his own skin, desperately trying to escape reality.
What hurts most is what never was. At the time, Hutchinson was leading all edge rushers in pressures (45) — 10 more than Nick Bosa’s 35. His pass-rush win rate (38.3 percent) was nearly 11 points higher than Myles Garrett’s 27.5. No player had more sacks than Hutchinson’s 7.5. What he was doing was special. He was on his way to an All-Pro season and was the clear frontrunner for the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award. His team was a juggernaut. It was all coming together, until it slowly unraveled.
Before the season, Hutchinson visualized blue confetti falling from Caesars Superdome in mid-February. Had he stayed healthy, he just might’ve been in New Orleans to witness it for himself.
To watch it vanish the way it did left Hutchinson scrambling for answers no one could provide.
“In those moments, you try to look at all the silver linings that you can in order to make it make sense a little bit,” Hutchinson said. “And still, at the end of the day, you question, ‘Why?’”
It wasn’t the first time.
Hutchinson is a visualizer. His mind is the pilot of his boldest manifestations, taking him everywhere and anywhere he wants to go. Where it lands often becomes his new reality.
As a fifth-grader, Hutchinson — a scrawny suburban kid who wasn’t allowed to play football until seventh grade — visualized himself starring for the same Michigan Wolverines his father Chris, an All-American in the 1990s, did. He told his father as much, eliciting a laugh or two. It soon became his reality.
When he arrived in Ann Arbor, he visualized his goals. Breaking Michigan’s sack record. Beating Ohio State. Winning a Heisman. Easy to roll your eyes at in the moment, tougher to do once the dust settles.
That sack record? It belongs to Hutchinson. Ohio State still has nightmares about that 2021 game, with Hutchinson accounting for three sacks and a PFF-record 15 hurries. Michigan took down the Buckeyes for the first time in a decade. He exited as a Big Ten champion, though he’d have to settle for Heisman runner-up in an era where quarterbacks dominate the vote, and the No. 2 overall pick held by his home state’s NFL franchise.
A worthy consolation prize for his efforts.
“He’s got his goals that he wanted to achieve — personally and as a team — and I mean, it came to life,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, Hutchinson’s DC at Michigan that season, told The Athletic. “I thought he was the best player in the country that year on both sides of the ball. It shows you the power of visualization. That stuff’s real.”
“That’s what he is,” Jim Harbaugh said of Hutchinson at the owners’ meeting. “That’s him, driven. He’s been that way probably since he came out of the crib.”
Hutchinson left the program better than he found it. But it’s the precursor to that magical season that makes it all the more satisfying.
In a November 2020 game against Indiana, amid a COVID-shortened season, Hutchinson went down. It looks eerily similar to what happened in Dallas. Hutchinson swiped the tackle’s hands, bent around the corner, pressured the quarterback and was slow to emerge. Next thing he knew, he was surrounded by trainers. Alone in the locker room, Hutchinson was told he’d fractured his ankle. His season was over.
This was Hutchinson’s first major injury. He could’ve declared for the 2021 NFL Draft and focused on testing, in hopes of becoming a Day 2 pick. Nobody would’ve blamed him. His team was 2-4. There wasn’t much expected of his Wolverines. But he wanted more. He wasn’t satisfied. He returned to Michigan, aiming to have the best season of his life.
And he did.
“The guy’s an absolute monster,” Macdonald said. “He came back better than ever. His body composition was just ridiculous. … Just maniacal about his preparation and all those details. Just have a ton of respect for him about how he works and his approach.”
Not quite done yet— I’ve decided to forego the NFL and return for my senior year〽️ #GOBLUE pic.twitter.com/FFtDiKbzgr
— Aidan Hutchinson (@aidanhutch97) December 28, 2020
Those who watched him work behind the scenes were in awe of his drive. He attacked his rehab process with the same max effort he plays with on the field. He was a menace. A pest in the best way. He told his coaches to push him to new heights, and made it his mission to cross off the lofty goals he wrote for himself.
“Every time I step foot in that weight room,” Hutchinson told former Wolverines strength coach Ben Herbert, “I want you to absolutely wring me out.”
That would eventually translate to the field, though he’d have to wait. Michigan wanted to be careful with Hutchinson, who was itching to participate in spring football ahead of the 2021 season. They held him out instead.
Macdonald remembers a conversation with Chris Hutchinson, telling him his son was destined for a special season. Macdonald had just arrived from the Baltimore Ravens and had only watched tape of Hutchinson. But he was able to witness the way he worked, the way he transformed his body, his mental aptitude. He was setting himself up for a memorable senior season. He was pairing his elite feel for the game with his ability to maximize everything he had physically. They just needed to get him there.
Hutchinson didn’t take the news well.
“He was hot,” Macdonald recalls. “He was pissed.”
The way the staff saw it, there was no point in risking it. They were getting Hutchinson at his best. In his mind, he had everything to prove. In their minds, there was nothing to prove.
They knew what was on the horizon. Fall camp would later confirm it.
Hutch was back.
“The offense couldn’t block him,” Macdonald said. “He’d wreck practice.”
That season at Michigan, and what came before it, laid the foundation for who he’d become. It also offered peace of mind, as he worked his way back from his latest injury.
“I have no doubt that he’ll come back 100 percent, and even better,” Harbaugh said. “He’ll come back stronger, faster, quicker, more relentless. That’s his makeup, and I’ve seen him train in the offseason, and I have no doubt whatsoever. I bet he’ll even be better.”
Jim Kielbaso has known Hutchinson his whole life. Turns out, you get to know a family pretty well when you live across the street from them.
Hutchinson’s sisters used to babysit Kielbaso’s children. He knows Chris and Melissa Hutchinson, Aidan’s parents, and how they’ve gone about raising their kids. They never pressured Hutchinson to pursue football, but they provided him with the resources to get where he wanted to go. Kielbaso was there to lend a neighborly hand.
A former strength coach at Detroit Mercy, Kielbaso worked with a number of athletes in the state. He got his start in his field teaching acceleration mechanics. His approach offered a tailored teaching of those mechanics, amid a one-size-fits-all era. He’s since written books on the subject. He owns his own gym — Impact Sports Performance in Novi, Mich. He has been hired by Michigan’s football program to help its players prep for the NFL Combine and works with a number of Lions players. His training with Hutchinson, though, began in high school.
Over the years, Kielbaso has watched Hutchinson — tall and gangly when they first started — turn into a high-level athlete. From his arrival at Michigan to becoming the No. 2 pick, Kielbaso has seen it all. His success is hardly surprising, despite the limitations others placed on him over the years.
“He creates success before it happens,” Kielbaso said. “I think sometimes people think a positive mentality, you know, people are just happy all the time. For him, it’s almost like — I don’t know that he even has limits on himself. … He wants to do big things and and he kind of manifests that through his thoughts and his work ethic.”
A Lions fan, Kielbaso remembers the injury. It brought his wife to tears and made him sick. The season Hutchinson was having, the year the Lions were having. It wasn’t supposed to end like that.
He sent Hutchinson a text after the game, as many did. Hutchinson responded quickly. In more ways than one.
“His mom told me, one day, he just kind of came out of the fog,” Kielbaso recalls. “And it wasn’t long after his injury. I thought it was going to take a lot longer to come out of it. He said, ‘I’m not broken.’ Not his leg — it was his spirit. He got right to work.”
When Hutchinson was cleared to begin rehabbing, he wasted no time. The blueprint was created at Michigan. He was in the facility almost every day, working with Lions director of player health and performance Brett Fischer. Linebacker Derrick Barnes, out with an MCL injury last year, remembers his first day rehabbing with Hutchinson.
“You know how that is,” Barnes said with a smile. “I didn’t get a, ‘Hi,’ when I walked in there. He just started giving me s— right off the bat.”
Not many can keep up with Hutchinson’s maniacal tendencies. He worked behind the scenes, doing everything he could to set himself up for a Super Bowl return. A lofty goal. But this is Hutchinson we’re talking about. Even Dan Campbell, a bit pessimistic when it comes to injuries, left the door cracked open.
“I would never count Hutch out, ever,” Campbell said. “If anybody could make it back, it’d be him.”
However, the opportunity never came. Hutchinson watched several teammates join him on injured reserve. A once-promising 15-2 season was derailed. The Lions were one-and-done in the postseason, falling to the Washington Commanders at home. Hutchinson’s season ended that October.
Sometime in the spring, Hutchinson reached out to Kielbaso. It was time for the next phase of rehab. He wanted to refine his mechanics. Kielbaso was ready for the call.
The early stages of their time together focused on stretch shortening cycle. It began with low-level, multidirectional hops on one leg. Hutchinson would stand inside a small, plastic octagon, jumping over one side, then another, then another. Like jumping rope. It tested muscles that hadn’t been used in months. After that, Kielbaso would pull out a six-inch box and have Hutchinson jump on and off of it with his surgically-repaired leg.
This was a barometer of sorts. The more he did the exercises, the more comfortable he felt. Hutchinson quickly recaptured his bend. He was running sprints and clearing those mental hurdles, one by one. Kielbaso knew it was only a matter of time until he was back.
Working with Aidan Hutchinson on his return to splendor (original video)@NFL @detroitnews @freep pic.twitter.com/yHRs24W5G2
— Jim Kielbaso (@JimKielbaso) May 2, 2025
Kielbaso has worked with hundreds of professional athletes. Few, if any, possess Hutchinson’s combination of mind and body. He’s a freaky athlete who trains like a walk-on. A No. 2 overall pick who works like he’s fighting for a spot on the practice squad.
“I’m at a point now in my career where it’s like, you’re shooting for the stars every year,” Hutchinson said. “And if that’s not the expectation or standard you put to yourself, it’s got to be that way.”
Kielbaso views it differently.
“He’s trying to be the greatest of all-time,” he said. “It’s a rare quality, I think, for somebody at his level.”
By the time the Lions reconvened for offseason workouts, Hutchinson’s leg was fully healed, his rehab was over and the only thing left to do was show his work.
Ask anyone on this team and they’ll say they knew Hutchinson was back on the first day of OTAs. There were tells. The way he’d bend a corner. The fluidity of his spin move. There was a pep in his step and a renewed appreciation of a sport that was taken away from him. It was contagious.
“His presence means a lot — to not only the defensive side, but to us,” Sewell said of his sparring partner this spring. “His work ethic, that type of energy, everyone just gravitates to it.”
In training camp, Hutchinson’s impact was felt as soon as the pads went on. He was a menace in practice, just like fall camp as a senior at Michigan. Hutchinson was so disruptive during scrimmage periods that Detroit’s offense often continued running a play he’d already blown up, just so they could complete the look.
Left tackle Taylor Decker likens him to a werewolf. When Hutchinson first entered the league, he would rarely threaten the edge, allowing tackles to wait for power, Decker explained. These days, he can win in three directions, with counters for days, at max effort near every time. He’s reached the point in his career where young players, like sixth-round pick Ahmed Hassanein, are watching Hutchinson and working to emulate the moves in his increasingly deep bag. Hutchinson noticed, and called him out for it this summer.
“Hey man, stop studying my tape,” Hutchinson joked.
“My bad, bro,” Hassanein responded. “I just look up to you so much.”
Many of Hutchinson’s peers do the same. Training camp was the precursor to what we’re seeing now. Hutchinson leads the NFL in pressures this season. He’s tied for third in sacks, fifth in pass-rush win rate and seventh in pressure rate — all while getting double-teamed at one of the highest rates in the league. He’s off to another Defensive Player of the Year-caliber start. There’s no reason to think he can’t finish with one.
When Hutchinson spoke this May — about his injury, the emotions, the time away and time spent trying to get back — it felt like the Lions were whole again. That all their aspirations were once again on the table.
But in some ways, it almost seemed like he was talking to himself as much as anyone in the room — once again manifesting what was to come.
“I think a lot of people believe that is kind of my ceiling,” Hutchinson said of the torrid start he was off to. “But I still believe that I’m going to continue to push for those greater heights. I’m 24. I’m still a young dude. … I don’t think that’s the peak.”
What Hutchinson thinks often becomes reality. If he thinks his best is yet to come, there’s reason to believe him.