THE MANA OF EKU: RAW TALENT AND ENERGY of OLB EKU LEOTA

Great article on undrafted (2023) Outside Linebacker Eku Leota.  I like watching this guy play.  He is turning heads already and did the same the end of last season.



CHARLOTTE — Derrick Brown likes to say when Eku Leota steps on the field, the mana comes out.

In Oceanic cultures, "mana" is a force unseen, the cultivation of energy and power, that can live in anyone or anything. In Polynesian cultures particularly, like Samoa, mana speaks to influence and efficiency, the innate ability to step up in any given situation.

"That sounds like a great description of Eku," safety Nick Scott nodded, seeing the easy to make parallels.

Outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney didn't even let the question hang in the air before he jumped in with his assessment.

"Energy," Clowney described. "High energy guy. Got a motor, he can go. Got the whole total package. I feel like he can set the edge and he can rush the passer so that's why he's getting all the snaps."

The Panthers have played in only one game thus far this season, versus the New Orleans Saints. In that Week 1 matchup, Leota was on the field for 45 percent of the defense's snaps. During that time, he had a sack, a quarterback hurry and three tackles for loss, the latter of which is tied for a league high after the first slate of games.



"You can trust that he's going to go," tight end Jordan Matthews shared of Leota, who he's faced off with in practice often. "He's not thinking, he's playing.

"He's got high energy and high motor and so much of this game is built on trust. If I just can bet my bottom dollar that if you're out there, I at least know what I'm going to get, that's the first thing.

"The second thing is, I know what I'm going to get, and it's actually productive and that's what he's excelled at is, you know what you're going to get from him and what he does well, can help the entire unit. He gets off the ball. He gets immediate pressure in the backfield. He plays with high motor."

An undrafted prospect out of Auburn, Leota spent the first half of his rookie season on the practice squad. By the end of the season, he'd played in eight games and been promoted to the active roster. As the Panthers worked their way through this latest offseason, coaches challenged Leota to step-up.

"I just tell those guys be great at what you're great at, like lean on what your strengths are because that's what's going to get you on the field," outside linebackers coach Tem Lukabu began.

Clowney called Leota a "raw talent" who might not know exactly what he's looking at just yet in game speed, but has everything he needs to slow down the game.

"He's got all the tools to be great, so I think that's why he's getting a lot of snaps," Clowney said.

Leota is a still a raw product for a few reasons, playing his first three years of ball at Northwestern, before finishing with one year at Auburn. Panthers head coach Dave Canales has said he's OK with playing younger guys for now, in order to pay off down the road. If means letting Leota rely more on instinct, while coaches refine his technique, so be it.

"It's like having a teenage kid and he's growing, he's got, it's not so much what he says, but it's what he's doing," Lukabu said. "What we do in pro football, intentions will get you beat. So, I tell those guys, you only want to see actions and his actions improve every time and he's getting better and better."

Leota doesn't typically raise his voice. He's gentile and affable in a sport that often demands the opposite.

Until he steps on the field.

"That's how I get it out," Leota said with a smirk.

At 7 years old, Eku moved with his family from Samoa to Asheville, N.C. His first football jersey was a Tom Brady jersey, and when he began playing organized football, he wanted to play quarterback but "sometimes it's not the way things go," Leota effaced.
Instead, coaches put him at center, guard and tackle.

"I was called the Swiss Army knife and I feel like that's where I got good with my hands is being an off tackle because they know they got to punch."

After years of being in the trenches, hitting, he found a taste for it. Now, when Leota is on the field, and the mana comes out, there's nothing one can do but give in.



Off the field, the mana is taking a little longer to emerge, but is showing itself in other ways.

"When you come in the league (as an undrafted rookie) it does have a way of making you a little bit more reserved," Matthews said. "If you're a rookie, you already feel like I should be seen, not heard. When you're an undrafted rookie, you are really just like, nobody probably cares what I have to say. So let me just focus on showing up on tape."

While Leota has been showing up on tape more and more, he's also let himself be heard around the facility and in the locker room this season, growing comfortable.

"He's hilarious," Lukabu said. "When he really gets to know you and he feels comfortable, he's like from another planet."

Some of that is gregariousness and a desire to please—"He's low key funny just because he just be doing like, like funny stuff like weird funny stuff because he be serious," safety Sam Franklin attempted to explain. "Our coach will ask him a question and he'll be like 'yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.' 

He might not even know what's going on yet, but he'll walk in (the door), 'yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.'"

And some of it is what teammates called unintentional hilariousness that Lukabu swears lends itself to, "one liners out of nowhere that you didn't expect. Like, wait a minute who said that?"

 

Leota was able to get to Samoa once since moving to North Carolina as a child. Some of his immediate family still live on the island, so he went for a visit his freshman year of high school.

"It was very surreal. Just a humbling experience as well. It's always nice to go back and just know your roots and where you came from," Leota said, thinking back to his home country and the culture that laid the foundation for who he has become.

It's a culture he's embraced more closely in recent years. So, when it came time to do his rookie talent last season, teammates asked him to perform a haka. Several calls to his family followed, for refreshers on how to enact the sacred dance, creating a nervous anticipation. But then, it became a memory, "that was special for me," Leota shared.

With it, the mana came out, and it's still driving Eku Leota to this day.