The Detroit Lions earned their fourth straight win with a 37-24 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday afternoon, and there were a lot of things that went right. The Lions were dominant, jumping out to a 28-3 lead after three quarters, and what was supposed to be a stripe out in Cincinnati quickly turned into a sea of Honolulu Blue even as the Bengals put up 21 points in the fourth quarter.
Overall, it was a pretty good day for everyone except Lions offensive tackle Giovanni Manu.
Manu struggled in his first career start, allowing a pair of sacks in place of starting left tackle Taylor Decker. While he made up for it with a solid performance in the running game, the sacks were fresh in head coach Dan Campbell’s mind as he didn’t commit to Manu as his starter for next week’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“We’ll see. We’re going to look at everything here,” Campbell said via Mike Payton of A to Z Sports. “Certainly, (Dan Skipper’s) back, you know. So we’ll look at Skip. We brought Devin Cochran today. He’s a candidate, and then we’ll see where Decker's at... I don’t want to put Decker out there if it means we get a couple of games and we don’t have him for the rest of the year... We’ll do what’s right and then next man up. If it’s not him, it’s next man up. Whether that is Manu again, we’ll see. Or is it one of those other two guys I just mentioned?”
Dan Campbell Sounds Like He's Doubting Gio Manu After Week 5
Manu was one of the most intriguing storylines going into Sunday’s game. A fourth-round pick by the Lions out of the University of British Columbia, Manu was viewed as a project coming into the league and didn’t appear in an NFL game until he logged a handful of special teams snaps at the beginning of the season.
Despite getting an endorsement from Decker after the two worked out together this past offseason, fans grew concerned when the latter battled a shoulder injury through the first months of the season. Those concerns came to life when Decker was ruled out of Sunday’s game, leaving Manu to make his first career start.
The results weren't great. Pro Football Focus gave Manu an overall grade of 42.2, and he produced a 55,3 grade on 34 run-blocking snaps. The biggest issue was pass protection, where Manu allowed a pair of sacks on 28 snaps, culminating in a 17.5 pass block grade. While the snaps were the lone blemish, it still wasn’t a desired outcome, which affected Campbell’s overall assessment of Manu’s performance after the game.
“Up and down,” Campbell said. “I thought that he did some good things in the run game. I thought there were some pass plays; he did a good job. And then there were some that. Man, they weren’t good, and he’ll learn from them. He’s got to learn from them... You don’t want to have a couple of plays where your quarterback gets hit, but at the same token, that’s probably the best way to learn, too... But it’s, look, that’s his first taste of real football, NFL, you know, not preseason. It’s real, so you just grow from it. It’s good experience.”
Even if Manu is still in a learning phase, the Lions need someone to play left tackle right now. As Campbell mentioned, Skipper returned after he was cut and placed on the practice squad at the end of training camp, and there’s still a chance that Decker could return, even though Campbell didn’t sound optimistic during Sunday’s press conference.
Either way, Manu may have fumbled his chance to start in the long term after just one game, which could lead to another change along the offensive line when the Lions battle the Chiefs.