Pane Su went from a one-bedroom shack in American Samoa to being the most dominant player in the NFL.

Dude’s one of the best players on this planet.

At 6’5 in 335 lbs, he walked into the league as a 20-year-old boy and redefined what an offensive tackle could be.

Y’ALL NEED SOME INSPIRATION? I’M GOING TO SHOW Y’ALL.

3 years later, he signed a $112 million contract, making him the highest paid player in his position.

But the real reason he’s so dominant has nothing to do with talent.

It was the place he came from.

Malai, American Samoa.

P Suell didn’t grow up around trainers and private facilities.

We were all just living in that shack, just uh one bedroom with like eight of us in it.

He grew up in a one-bedroom shack in a place where the way out was usually two options, the army or football.

Football started early.

Pads, drills, and pickup tackle on the beach with his brothers.

And the funny part, he didn’t even love it at first.

He’s admitted he got thrown into drills with older kids and didn’t like the sport for a minute.

Then the real pressure showed up.

Oh man, that was hard.

Uh, most definitely hard.

I didn’t want to move at all.

When he was about 11, the family left Samoa for St.

George because his father had serious chest pains.

And medical care back home wasn’t something you gambled with.

Before they left, his dad gave him a watch with a photo inside their old pink shack.

Pine says he looks at it constantly, so he never forgets the starting line.

At Desert Hills High, he wasn’t promising.

He was already starting varsity at 14.

By 15, offers poured in.

Alabama, USC, Oregon, everybody.

But his brother, Nephi’s broken neck, changed the tone of everything.

Pa learned one rule for life.

Not every down is guaranteed.

They eventually won a state title, and his coach said something wild.

When the offense came off the field, he talked to Pa first because Pa saw everything.

So when Oregon got him, they didn’t bring Pa Su in to develop.

They brought him in because the moment he showed up in 2018, the coaches realized something uncomfortable.

Their best left tackle was a teenager.

I’m not sure if I’ve seen a prospect that flashes more on tape since I’ve been doing this than Su.

And not teenager, like a fun trivia fact.

17 years old.

so young that a few years later on draft day he was still young enough that it became a story that he couldn’t even sign his own paperwork but on the field he didn’t look young.

He won the starting left tackle job immediately and he started Oregon’s first seven games as a true freshman and now backing off on the tempo gets out quickly red again in space and they will and in those seven games pro football focus graded him as the nation’s top freshman offensive lineman with an 84.

0 zero grade already being ranked among the best tackles in the country.

Period.

That’s the part that should scare you.

Most freshman are trying not to get embarrassed.

Pa was stacking receipts ever so slightly before the defender can get to him.

10th play of the drive for the corner of the end zone.

Then the season tried to humble him.

Midway through the year, a high ankle sprain hit and sidelined him for six games.

the first real reminder that dominance can disappear fast and your body doesn’t care about hype.

But even while he was barely a chapter into college football, people were already writing the headline.

A mid-season New York Times feature basically said it out loud.

This freshman was already a big man on campus.

And here’s what makes 2019 the turning point.

Once Pagan was healthy again, he didn’t come back as a promising young tackle.

He came back like he was trying to break the position.

Juan Johnson incomplete.

Jaylen Johnson was in coverage.

53 yards.

Sets up the first and goal AND WALKING IN TONY.

HE WAS still only a sophomore, but Oregon’s entire offense started to feel different behind him.

Like the left edge of the line just stopped being a place defenses could win.

Then the receipts started stacking up.

Former Desert Hills High School star Penny Su was awarded uh tonight then 2019 winner of the Outland Trophy as the country’s best lineman.

He won the Outland Trophy given to the best interior lineman or tackle in college football, becoming the youngest Outland winner ever and the first Oregon player to win it.

He was a unanimous all-American.

And Oregon didn’t just look good.

They took the Pack 12 and punched their way into the Rose Bowl where they beat Wisconsin to cap it.

LET’S GO, DUCKS.

WHAT’S UP, OREGON? [screaming] NOW, here’s the part that turns great into dominant.

Pro Football Focus graded Su’s 2019 season at 95.

5, one of the best offensive tackle grades they’d ever recorded at the time.

And across his entire college career, he was credited with allowing only one sack.

One and 1376 snaps at Oregon.

You gave up one sack.

What the hell happened on that one snap? That’s not solid pass protection.

That’s erasing the idea that edge rushers exist.

And remember, he was doing this while still basically growing into his body.

Still younger than most juniors, he was embarrassing.

So by the end of 2019, Pa had already done the thing most linemen never touch.

He became the best player on the field without scoring a single point.

Then the 2020 season turned into chaos.

The Pack 12 schedule got shortened.

Everything felt uncertain and Su, already labeled a generational tackle prospect, had to make the most adult decision of his life.

In September 2020, he opted out of his junior season to prepare for the NFL draft.

And it wasn’t because he didn’t love Oregon.

He did.

He even loved the idea of playing with his younger brother, Noah, who joined the Ducks in 2020.

But the watch lesson was already written into him.

Not every down is guaranteed, so he chose the future.

I didn’t really like sitting there and kind of just waiting around, not knowing what was going to happen.

So, yeah, I opted out, got down here, and started training.

That decision turned him into the rarest thing in football.

A 20-year-old offensive lineman with zero questions left.

Now all that was left was draft night and finding out which team was brave enough to build a franchise around a kid from a pink shack.

Going into the 2021 draft, Pai Suil wasn’t viewed like a normal prospect.

He was labeled a cornerstone left tackle, the kind of player you draft once and stop worrying about that position for a decade.

And on draft night, Detroit, stuck in a rebuild, did something rare.

They didn’t chase the loud pick.

They chased the foundation.

With the seventh pick in the 2021 NFL draft, the Detroit Lions select Paneet Su.

With the seventh overall pick, the Lions took Suel.

And people inside the building made it clear this wasn’t random.

GM Brad Holmes admitted he’d been watching Su since 2019.

stunned that you don’t find an athlete his size with that temperament every day.

He was also absurdly young, 20 years and 202 days old, the youngest first round pick in Lions history, and the league knew it.

A lot of experts called him a steal at number seven, especially after Cincinnati passed at number five.

So, Detroit fans are celebrating like they just got the future.

And then the first twist hits because when he arrives, the Lions already have their left tackle, Taylor Decker.

He looks great over at the left tackle position, but you got Taylor Dcker that looks good over at the left tackle position.

That’s a more seasoned veteran.

Meaning the cornerstone LT wasn’t walking into comfort.

He was walking into a position change.

Day one, Detroit’s plan was simple.

Taylor Decker at left tackle.

The rookie learns right tackle.

Sounds reasonable until the NFL reminds you it doesn’t care about your plan.

Early on, Su’s switching sides looked exactly like you’d expect.

Awkward moments, rust from a year without live football, and a preseason where the media started getting loud.

And then week one hit.

Decker gets hurt.

The very latest news though from the Lions is not good.

Taylor Decker is out with a finger injury.

He will not play against the 49ers.

And suddenly, the Lions don’t need a future cornerstone.

They need an emergency left tackle.

So, in his first NFL game, the 20-year-old rookie gets shoved back to the blind side and draws Nick Bosa.

That’s not a welcome, that’s a punishment.

Except Suall didn’t flinch.

He held Bosa without a tackle well into the first half.

And for most of the day, he gave up almost nothing.

So little pressure that even in a loss, his debut became the headline.

Dan Campbell praised the poise, pointing out the insane detail.

At 20, Su became the youngest player ever to start at left tackle in an NFL game and carried himself like a vet.

You’re talking a young rookie tackle in his first game going against one of the best edge rushers.

After the game, PFF even graded him as Detroit’s highest graded offensive player.

So yeah, he survived the hardest first assignment imaginable.

But the league didn’t respect you for surviving.

They respect you when you don’t back down.

And that moment came a few weeks later when a rookie tackle decided to finish a block on Aaron Donald and Donald decided to take it personally.

Week seven, 2021, Lions versus Rams.

Pennne is lined up across from a three-time defensive player of the year, a future Hall of Famer, the guy who lives in offensive lineman’s nightmares.

And on one snap, Su doesn’t just block Aaron Donald, he drives him back a yard and keeps going through the whistle.

And this may back the Lions up more.

And now some discussion from Pane Su and Aaron Donald.

Donald snaps.

He grabs Su’s face mask and takes a swing.

And this is the moment the NFL finds out what kind of person pay is because the 21-year-old rookie doesn’t freeze.

He grabs Donald’s face mask right back and shoves him until teammates pull them apart.

On the broadcast, Mark Sanchez basically said what everyone was thinking.

Suil wasn’t backing down.

Even Lions veteran Vitai laughed later and said that’s how the young buck makes a name for himself.

And Su told you this was coming.

That scuffle wasn’t just a highlight.

It was a warning because once Detroit put him back at right tackle and he stopped learning on the fly.

2022 is where he went from tough rookie to one of the league’s elite on this planet.

He’s the best player at his position and he’s the best player on the Detroit Lion.

He started all 17 games and Detroit’s run game started leaning on him like a lever.

Swift, Jamal Williams, doesn’t matter.

The point was simple.

If 58 got his hands on you, you were going somewhere you didn’t want to go.

But here’s the part that turns nasty into dominant.

In pass protection, he was basically clean.

Across 569 pass block snaps, he allowed just 18 total pressures and one sack.

Numbers that put him with the most reliable tackles in football.

And he’s doing it at 22.

Then comes the fun moment that tells you how Detroit viewed him.

Two minutes remaining.

Goff throws IT AND IS CAUGHT PANE S.

The stadium loses its mind.

Dan Campbell later joked, “What the f are we doing?” But it worked and even teased Su could be a Hall of Fame tight end if he slimmed down.

By the end of the year, he’s in the Pro Bowl mix.

Detroit finishes 9 and 8, and the rebuild suddenly looks real.

And once the league saw Detroit wasn’t a cute story anymore, the next step was inevitable.

In 2023, at just 23, he was voted a team captain for the first time.

Not because he was the loudest guy, but because everybody in that building already knew who set the standard.

Then he played like it.

The Lions offense is predicated off the run game.

It’s built off the play action, and it’s built off of moving Pennul around and attacking people.

He started 17 of 17 again, and according to PFF, he led all NFL tackles with a 92.

8 overall grade in 2023.

His run blocking grade was 95.

1, best of any tackle in the league and the second highest tackle run block grade PFF has recorded since 2008.

That’s not a good season.

That’s a season where the right side of the line becomes a weapon.

And Detroit played like a team that knew it.

They went 12 to 5, made the playoffs, and went all the way to the NFC Championship game, a stage the franchise hadn’t touched in decades.

They lost a 34-31 heartbreaker short of the Super Bowl.

And there [cheering] it is.

The 49ers are going to the Super Bowl.

But Su’s individual verdict was already stamped.

First team allpro and another Pro Bowl nod.

And his peers, they ranked him 22nd on the NFL top 100 for 2024, top 25 in the entire league as an offensive lineman.

So after 2023, Detroit had no choice.

When a 23-year-old tackle is leading the league in dominance and dragging your franchise into January, you don’t hope he stays.

You pay him like the future, and you build the next chapter around him.

Breaking news out of the NFL.

The Lions continuing their spending spree, agreeing to a 4-year, $112 million extension with all pro tackle pane Su.

Four years, $112 million, about $85 million guaranteed.

A deal that at the time made Su one of the highest paid linemen in NFL history and locked him in through 2029.

And Detroit didn’t even pretend this was complicated.

Dan Campbell called him the type of player you build your team around.

Then Su did the thing stars do after they get paid.

He got better.

He repeated as a first team allpro in 2024.

Made another Pro Bowl.

And by 2025, he’s stacking it again.

Three straight first team AllPros.

2023 to 2025.

four straight Pro Bowls and 83 of 83 possible starts without missing a game.

If you can’t see that Pen Su is one of the best players in football, not offensive line, one of the best players in football, then I can’t help you and I won’t help you.

Off the field, he stays rooted.

The Su strong foundation, education, mental health, youth opportunity, and his Samoan pride worn literally on his arm in a tribal sleeve that represents his culture and beliefs.

So when people call Pa Su dominant, they’re not talking about a paycheck.

They’re talking about a guy who still carries that island mindset and turns NFL Sundays into proof that the trenches decide everything.

It it stems from like who I am and my time I spend on the island.

That’s the real story of Pa Su.

He didn’t become dominant by chasing highlights.

He became dominant by doing the hardest job in football, protecting everyone else’s glory.

So well that the league had to treat him like a star anyway.

Born in Mala Amy, raised with island toughness and a family that moved for better medical care.

Carrying home in a watch with a photo of their pink shack, he learned early not every down is guaranteed.

Then he hit Oregon at 17, Detroit at 20, faced Bosa and Donald energy, switched sides, and still became the backbone of a contender.

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