Giovani Manu turned to Taylor Decker to help him improve as an NFL left tackle, with the goal of being his future successor.
Following Day 3 of Detroit Lions training camp, as players disperse to their post-practice functions, reserve left tackle Giovanni Manu spent his recovery time running sprints up the training hill at the back of the practice field. He’s grinding out every moment he has in Allen Park, hoping to improve his ability to play left tackle in the NFL.
At 6-foot-8, 340 pounds, rapidly ascending that steep incline is no easy task, but when you consider he attended OTAs in the spring at 365 pounds, it’s clear he’s taking the proper steps to improve himself.
Getting into better shape is just one of many target goals in Manu’s NFL journey. He’s spent the offseason working to improve himself in several other key areas, and he’s sought out guidance from the Lions’ longest tenured player, starting left tackle Taylor Decker.
The Lions traded up into the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft to select Manu, and while he spent his rookie season on the active roster, he was a weekly inactive on game days. Manu spent the entirety of his rookie season grinding it out on the practice field and working out with starting right tackle Penei Sewell, whom Manu gravitated toward as they share Polynesian heritage.
But near the end of the season, Manu “was in a lull” and contemplating plans for his offseason training. He sought out Decker for advice, and the veteran left tackle extended an invitation to train with him (along with Netane Muti and Jamarco Jones) at former Pro Bowler LeCharles Bentley’s AMDG Performance Center in Arizona.
Manu jumped at the opportunity. Not only do he and Decker play the exact same position on the football field, but Decker’s career path represents a dream scenario for Manu.
“It’s easy, man,” Manu said of his decision. “He’s the longest-tenured Lion for a reason, right? My hopes—because every hope, as a player when they enter the league—is to have that type of career, stay with one team. He’s a Pro Bowler. He’s had multiple contract extensions. That’s something I want to do. So I just asked him, ‘What’s your recipe to success?’ And he just told me, ‘Just come down to Arizona and train with me, and just learn from me.’ And that was a no-brainer to me.”
While Manu went to Arizona to train his body for the rigors of being an NFL left tackle, Decker’s “recipe for success” included lessons beyond the football field.
“I got to learn so much from him,” Manu said of his time in Arizona with Decker. “In terms of like his life outside of here, we even talked about just non-football stuff, and just football stuff, too. I trained at the same facility as him, and that was all thanks to him, because he wanted me there to work out with him. He’s a great guy. He’s a role model to me.”
Manu says his experiences over the past year have helped him gain more confidence, reduce his hesitancy, improve his consistency, and overall, elevate his game. He enters training camp with the goal of becoming a player coaches can count on when he’s needed.
“I just want to show them that I’m the player that they wanted me to be,” Manu continued. “I’m the player that they drafted, and I’m the player that they saw towards the end of the year, which is that aggression, that high confidence. I just want to take it up a notch from last year, and I want to prove to them that I’ve got what it takes to step foot on that field when I need to be called upon. So that’s what I’m going to do, just chip away at it every day.”
A path to the field won’t be easy, though. While he is certainly making positive steps, he still has a long way to go on his learning curve.
“Training his body has been big for him,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said of Manu during training camp. “He’s beginning to transform himself, and I would say that’s the biggest improvement. There’s things that he’s getting more aware of that he’s learning. And man, he’ll take two steps up and then one step back, and so that’s kind of where he’s at. He’ll have a good day, and then there’s a couple of things that’ll slide that we’ve got to keep working on with him. And he knows this. As long as he keeps pushing, he’ll be fine.”
Manu indeed recognizes that he’s still making some mental mistakes, and while he feels that those are fewer and farther between compared to last training camp, he knows he needs to put in the work to eliminate them.
“Just extra work, right? Extra film study, extra time with my coaches, I need to do more time on myself, too, studying these long days,” Manu said of his plan to improve. “I would say just like going to work every day, being consistent about that, that’s how you clean up those mental errors. A big part of it is just learning and growing from those mistakes.”
One way to help reduce the learning curve for Manu is to allow him to focus solely on the left tackle position. There has been plenty of speculation on whether he could be thrown into the guard competition, but Manu put that conversation to rest, explaining that coaches have told him to focus only on tackle at this stage of his development.
“Well, as of right now, my most comfort level (would be) playing would be left tackle, but obviously, we have Decker there,” Manu explained. “In terms of guard play, I was told by Hank (Fraley, Lions’ offensive line coach) just to assume that I’m going to play mostly tackle, and guard would be maybe something long down on the road. So for now, my focus is purely tackle.”
Taking the stance of learning a single position is understandable, as playing left tackle in the NFL is a demanding responsibility. And while Decker is the current starter, he will also turn 32 years old during training camp, and the Lions appear to be targeting Manu as their succession plan.
“There’s so much I’ve learned from him,” Manu praised Decker. “Just the way I carry myself, too, as far as a player off the field and stuff. Yeah, great dude. Hopefully one day I get to fill his shoes.”