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Speaker 3: Hey, everyone. Jefferson here with your daily DLP. Welcome back from the holiday weekend. It is Monday, June 6 July 6. Sorry. You lose time, when you have the holidays, and I haven't done I haven't done one of these in a couple of days. First off, I wanna thank everyone for the great, response to Joel Wachowski, the author of Honolulu Blues. That was Friday's show. Tremendous feedback. I can't encourage you enough. Go out and get the book. He's a funny guy. I have read nearly in the entire book now. It's good. You'll want it, and your friends will want it too. So, Joel didn't pay me to say that. It was really, really good. We're gonna get into stuff today, and this week will be more one player focused. So over the weekend, I did put out my projected 53 man roster. I split it between offense and defense. Technically, the special teams is with the defense too, but there's no competition for any of the specialists. They're all great. So it's basically offense and defense. And one of the players that I had out is Giovanni Manu. And I don't like having him out because just look at him. Looks like an offensive lineman. Right? But it's year three developmental project. And to this point, he has not shown that he can play reliably, consistently in the NFL. For a variety look. It's easy to get hung up on the sunken cost. They traded a third to draft him in the fourth. It hasn't worked for through the first two years. I remember back to his first couple of days of NFL training camp, and it looked like he was like a high school freshman, on on the first day at, like, Ferris State, which the top d two program in the country, right by here. They have a tremendous program, and, like, he just looked outclassed. You could tell that he didn't grow up playing football, that he didn't understand the nuances of the game. He'd never played American football before that day. He played in Canadian college, Canadian rules. It's different there. Grew up playing basketball in Tonga before moving to Canada to be a basketball player, and all of that background has shown. And, that's not to say that he's, like, not capable of doing things. Like, you you you see him when you understand the physical potential. But he didn't grow up playing the sport. And if you've played sports, you know it's very difficult to come to a sport later and master it quickly when you're going against other people who have been playing for, in a lot of cases, thirty years. Think Dan Skipper didn't play football when he was five? Yeah. Exactly. And the the technique and the the the little quick things that you that you reflexively know because of experience, he hasn't had any of that. Now he's trying to build it as fast as he can, but it's tough. So I wanted to bring up and I'm gonna read from, Reiner Sabin's article at the Detroit Free Press. It's titled Time May Be Running Up for Detroit Lions offensive lineman, Giovanni Manu. He's aware. And I wanted to give a couple of quotes from Brad Holmes, the general manager who drafted him. This is a quote. And, again, I'm quoting from from Reiner's work here. It would be irresponsible for us to go into to just go into it thinking that, well, we drafted a developmental player a couple of years ago. He's going to be the guy, Holmes said. A few minutes later, Holmes doubled down on the remark by adding, I'm not going to sit here and say that we feel convicted that he's ready to be a major contributor. Yellow's year three. Developmental project, if you haven't shown that you can hang by now, it's now or never. Was that with Broderick Martin? Not long ago. Didn't work. Lions washed their hands of it. And I don't think for a second that his draft status as, again, a fourth round pick that they traded a third round pick to get. That's not gonna save Giovanni Manu if he can't play this year. If he's not better than Larry Borom at tackle, Colby Soresdahl, who I did have making it as the final offensive lineman. He's gonna be better than Devin Cochran, who most of you were listening probably haven't heard of. Devin Cochran's bigger. Yes. He is bigger than Shivani Manu.

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Speaker 3: He's not quite as athletic, but if you're looking for size like, this guy's played college football. Like, it shows. There's a very real chance that Giovanni Manu is tackle five by the end of the first preseason game. Now I will also spin that the other way because he's been working with La Charles Bentley. La Charles is, you know, the founder of O line like, incredible O line performance. Can't say enough good things about what they do for offensive linemen. They will squeeze all the juice out of every fruit, whether it's a golden apple or a lemon. And right now, Manu's been a lemon, but they're trying their best to make lemonade with it. And, like, I know I know what La Charles does. Hoping to get out to their facility at some point. But Manu has dedicated himself to it. He he understands where he's at. Big summer for him. There was some talk about moving him inside the guard. Dan Campbell facilitated that conversation, on the last day of mini camp. Not gonna judge anything off mini camp other than where he repped because they didn't have pads on. It's very difficult to evaluate linemen without pads on. There are certain things that you can pick up, balance, their ability to pick up second level rushers, remain remain on task on their assignment. But I just go back to that, you know, the first couple of days of his rookie training camp. And I remember, like, thinking I I remember, no one, Beyonce, and I, Nolan from the Detroit News, were standing next to each other, and we're watching. And we're like, what did they do? And then then we got the glimpse. I remember writing about this at the time in my report that day. He lost, like, eight out of 10 reps, and the other two were stalemates. And then they called they called a zone run, and he was responsible for sealing the backside. He got out, and he absolutely annihilated the backside linebacker. Like, depleted him and then kept running and got in front of another block. I'm like, okay. Alright. I get it. I see it. But those moments have just been too few and far between for Giovanni Manu. The technique has to come. And I wanna show this picture because this is one of the issues that he's had consistently. Now this is him going against, the Falcons in preseason. Notice how upright he is. His back is very nearly straight up. His arms not extended. He has lost the battle for leverage here. That is something that we have seen very consistently throughout his time both in training camp against the Lions defensive players, should, by the way, understand how to beat him, but also in preseason games. In the brief audition that he had in the NFL in real time. He's still too tentative. He still just doesn't trust the technique. And, again, it's not natural for him. It's not second nature yet. Hopefully, we see that it's better this summer because I'd hate to give him up, but it's not looking great for him. And one of the other issues that you see just with this picture, he's six foot eight. Remember when Dan Skipper would play guard and golf would occasionally have to double clutch a ball because skipper was in the way just not not out of his own fault. Just in the course of blocking, when you're six eight to six ten, you're in the throwing lane. And when you're throwing short passes over the middle a lot, timing, rhythm based passing, which is what Drew Petzing does primarily, not exclusively, but primarily, tall interior linemen do get in the way. They can disrupt that. It's true at tackle too, but the other issue, just think about think about who's playing tackle for defensive tackle for the lions. Tylik Williams, Ali McNeil, Jay Tuphile. These guys are all six two, six three. All quickness based, by the way. To Philly, not so much, but he's he's your backup nose tackle. He's he's your Roy Lopez replacement if he makes the team this year, and he may he may not. You know, Aiden, the undrafted rookie. He's listed at six four. He ain't six four. I'd I stood right by him. He is not close to as tall as me. I put him at six two and a half maybe. Now you're six eight, six nine with long arms, which are a little bit of a detriment in that situation. Yeah. You can reach down if you fire up fast enough. And I hope that that's what La Charles and the the OLP crew have been working with Manu on, firing out quicker and more confidently with this strike. Because if you're late with your strike

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Speaker 3: You've got long arms you've lost, and that's something that we've seen consistently with Manu. And I hope that that gets cleared up. I hope it's better, but he is up against it this year. Yeah. I'm rooting for him. And part of it is he didn't ask for this. He didn't ask to be drafted where he was. Sure he was happy about it, and I'll go back in time. The twenty twenty four draft, which now in retrospect, Lions fans look at it like, oh my god. Y'all ain't wrong on that. But at the time, some of us questioned aloud. Really? This guy? This guy who might not start at Hope College this year, like, if he played there at d three school, where I'm headed very shortly to hang out for the day. But the athletic potential sold everybody. Well, based on what I've seen on Reddit by the way, this is your official Detroit Lions and Reddit connection and the DLP Patreon Slack. Good group in there. Join. $5 a month. That's great. Got other stuff coming for you too. New stuff that will, will help help make it less ad clustered for you. It feels like everybody's turned on him, and everybody is wanting the lines to get done with him. And it's at this point where I suddenly see him as the stray dog that you petted and fed for a little bit. And then you're like, oh god. He's got mange. Probably has worms. I don't really wanna spend the money to help this dog. You know? I can't afford to feed it. But then you can't get rid of him. And that's sort of where he's at for me now. Like, I want it to work. I want the training that he's had with the best people in the business, both outside the lines and with Hank Fraley and the the lines developmental staff, which I think has done a pretty good job with a lot of people. Not everybody, but a lot. Pretty good track record there. I'm rooting for him. If he is just o t four and on the roster because he takes Dan Skipper's spot as the extra tight end and maybe in field goal block situations. I mean, that that's a frustrating return on investment for a third round pick. Again, you traded a third round pick to get him. But it is a role that's on the team. But right now, I don't know that he's gonna win that role because I saw Colby Sorsdell catch a pass in mini camp. I saw Juice Scruggs handle the ball well in mini camp. Haven't seen that from Manu. Don't know if he can be the lion's version of Darnell Washington, a very poor man's version of Darnell Washington of Pittsburgh. He has not shown that yet. Maybe he will. Maybe he will surprise us in later this month in training camp, but that's where we are with Giovanni Manu. I do not have him making the 53 man roster, and he is one of those this is just my stream of thought speculation here that if they're gonna cut him, he is a guy that you could maybe call some O line desperate team, especially a team that doesn't have depth behind good starters. And that would be San Francisco comes to mind. Philadelphia comes to mind. Cleveland. Yeah. You could probably flip him for maybe a conditional seventh round pick if he lasts four weeks, something like that. So you get even some modicum of return. Because, again, freaking look at the dude. The planet theory, man. Like, he is he is very physically impressive. But now it's time for the football to be impressive. And, as Brad Holmes said, they they're not depending on it anymore. I do wanna read from from, Sabin's piece too. He where, he talked to La Charles Bentley. And I think this is a good closing point. And this is La Charles, being quoted here. It is a signal just as it relates to what's going on in Detroit that the leash is getting short. Training camp this year, yeah, there's gonna be some more intensity and scrutiny to it, but the reality is he's going to play in the National Football League. Maybe it's Detroit, maybe it won't be. Well said, La Charles. That's your daily for today. Jeff Riston signing out. Be good doing another, everybody.