'If this guy was at a divsion one school, he'd be a first-round draft pick' get to know new Lions offensive lineman Giovanni Manu

The Detroit Lions made a bit of a shocking choice on Saturday when they traded away a future third-round pick to move up in the fourth-round and take Giovanni Manu. A Tongan born player that played for a Canadian college. 

The shocking thing wasn't that the Lions took him. We knew there was some interest in Manu. The Lions had him in for a top-30 visit near the beginning of the month and 12 other teams did too. I even mocked him to the Lions in my final 7-round mock draft this year. 

The surprising part was that teams saw him as a special player that needed to be taken high. We've often seen international players come in with great size and great athleticism and that player doesn't get drafted. Some do, but it seems more often than not, they don't. It happened with two other offensive lineman in this very draft class. 

Manu's teammate Theo Benedet didn't get drafted and is now a UDFA with the Bears and Dominican lineman Bayron Matos didn't get drafted and he is an undrafted rookie with the Dolphins. So there had to be something special about Manu that made teams want him right? The Lions couldn't have been the only team that moved up that far. 

We had a conversation with TSN broadcaster Farhan Lalji about Manu and Lalji told A to Z Detroit that he reached out to Manu's agent on Saturday to ask where he thought Manu would go. 

"I assumed he was gonna say round six or seven." Lalji said. "He's (Manu's agent) like 'no there's team's telling me they're going to take him in round four."

So this is no shock to the NFL world. Half the league was interested and multiple teams were looking to take him around where he went. The Lions were right to jump ahead and get their man. 

How did we get here? A month ago a lot of NFL teams and fans didn't know who Manu was. Now he's a fourth round-draft pick. The answer is that it all sort of happened by chance. 

For starters, Manu and his family moved from Tonga to Canada when he was 11-years-old. They moved to an area where the school that Manu went to had a football program that was just a few years old. Lalji said the school was so underexposed that the majority of Canadian universities didn't even know who he was. That was until the coach of one of the most prestigious college's in the country found him and asked Lalji for a favor. 

"I'll never forget it, like it was yesterday. Blake Nill, the UBC coach calls me at some point in the spring and he's like 'what do you know about Giovanni Manu?" Lalji said. "Well, I know he's this really big kid playing at Pitt Meadows, but it's such a bad level of football.' Because we have different classifications and it was kind of the bottom end of the bottom and I said 'so it's hard to tell if he's just a big body or if he can potentially be a really good player because he's just played really bad football and he's barely played'. So he said to me 'I think he is going to be amazing. Don't tell anybody about him."

Manu wound up playing football at UBC, but that's not where this story ends. We mentioned his teammate Theo Benedet earlier in the story. He was someone that had a great 2022 season and could have entered last years draft. He instead opted to go to UBC for a fifth season and enter the 2024 draft. The NFL scouts traveled to UBC to see Benedet and just happened to see Manu there and everyone got excited about him and his athleticism.

In terms of what Manu can be for the Lions, Lalji says the Lions are penciling him in at right guard at the moment. That opens up a few possibilities for the future for more than just him. That puts Colby Sorsdal back at his natural tackle position and sixth round pick Christian Mahogany at left guard. Give all these guys time under one of the best offensive lines in the NFL and Lions offensive line coach  Hank Fraley and we could be looking at the line of the future with Manu and the rest of these young guys. 

Lalji believes that Manu's progression will take time, "but not an epic amount of time." The big thing that should help Manu acclimate is that during his time at UBC, his offensive line coach was Dan Dorazio. He's been working with offensive lineman since the 70's and has coached at Georgia Tech, Washington, Maryland and Hawaii. He was also one of the premier offensive line coaches in the CFL and coached four Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman award winners. 

To end our conversation I asked Lalji the question that may be on a lot of Lions' fans minds. Did he think the Lions reached for Manu and can he be a starting right guard in the NFL?

"I think they did not reach and I think he'll absolutely be a starting guard.' Lalji said. "I don't think they reached, like if this guy was at a division one school, he'd be a first round draft pick or a second round draft pick. There was enough buzz from about 16 teams that came to the pro day and the 13 teams that brought him in and a couple of additional teams that came out to UBC to work him out. He wasn't going to last until round six."