One of the bigger storylines of the Detroit Lions’ 37-24 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals was the starting debut of 2024 fourth-round pick Giovanni Manu. The developmental offensive tackle, by most estimations, was never supposed to make the field this early in his career. This offseason, the Lions added veteran Jamarco Jones—who was trending towards winning the backup tackle job—in addition to bringing back trustworthy veteran Dan Skipper.
But it’s been a rough go for the Lions’ offensive tackles
so far. Jones suffered a season-ending injury in the preseason, Skipper has been battling a knee injury since the start of September, and starting left tackle Taylor Decker is struggling every week with a chronic shoulder injury. On Sunday, it was finally too much for Decker to play, leaving Manu as the next man up against the Bengals.
By coach Dan Campbell’s own admission, it was a mixed bag for Manu’s debut.
“I thought he did some good things in the run game,” Campbell said. “I thought there were some play (action) passes he did a good job (on). And then there were some that—they weren’t good, and he’ll learn from. He’s gotta learn from. That’s what you look forward to.”
Manu’s day was lowlighted by two highly-visible sacks allowed, one that resulted in a fumble lost for quarterback Jared Goff. Manu explained to Justin Rogers of Detroit Football Network why those two mistakes occurred.
On the first, which All-Pro edge rusher Trey Hendrickson knocked free from quarterback Jared Goff’s grasp for a turnover, Manu said he didn’t hear a change to the play call before the snap. And with the second, Manu said he got too aggressive selling the run on the play-action.
So after this week’s Midweek Mailbag recording, Erik Schlitt and I flipped on the All-22 tape to look at Manu’s overall performance beyond the two sacks allowed. We look at every snap of his through three quarters, plus the two sacks he did allow, breaking down the good and the bad from the second-year player’s debut.
After that, around the 39-minute mark of the video, we transition to cornerback Terrion Arnold’s performance in coverage. We break down a zone coverage-heavy day for former first-round pick and look at some of his successes and failures on the day. We also look at his two penalties from the game and decide if they were legitimate mistakes or ticky-tacky calls from the officials.
You can watch our entire breakdown below. Note: If YouTube removes the embedded capabilities of the video below, you can access it here.
