It might be time to start worrying about how long the Lions are going to take with Giovanni Manu

The Detroit Lions took a real risk in the 2024 NFL Draft when they were the team that traded up to draft British Columbia tackle Giovanni Manu in the fourth round. 

Manu came out of nowhere in the months leading up to the draft, and the Lions were far from the only team that had interest in him. He was likely to go early on day three, regardless of whether or not the Lions took him. 

It was known right away that Manu was a project that was going to take some time to get NFL-ready. This pick was based on his athleticism and his body. Two things you can't dispute he has. 

The Lions red-shirted him in year one, and now here we are in year two, and the hope was that we'd see marked improvement and possibly see him being active more during the regular season. In some ways, that's been seen. But Dan Campbell's comments on Tuesday show there's a consistency problem, and maybe this might take a little longer than hoped. 

"He's begun to transform himself, and I would say that's (his body) the biggest improvement. And then, certainly, 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 got to keep working on with him. And he knows, as long as he keeps pushing, he'll be fine. But you know, that's what he's got to do, is learn from it." 

Nobody is throwing up the red flags and setting off alarms on him right now. We all knew this would be a process. So far, we have heard a lot of good things about his body transformation and getting down the physical part of the game, but even teammate Penei Sewell mentioned during OTAs that the mental part is still where he needs work. 

So that's what the Lions will do. The only real concern at this point is how long it is going to take. The Lions have some time right now since Taylor Decker is still here, but the expectation has been that Manu is the eventual replacement. If he's a year or two away from being a year or two away, the Lions might not be able to wait that long. 

With that said, the jury is not out on Manu at this time. He's still got a lot of favor behind him, and I still think he can become a solid NFL tackle. We're going to have to wait to find out when that can happen, though.