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Breaking down Manti Te’o’s growth spurt

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The day he invested two draft picks in Manti Te’o, Chargers General Manager Tom Telesco said what his actions had just shouted.

Telesco said he believed Te’o would become an “every down” linebacker.

Saturday night against the 49ers, that day arrived, though without the attendant hoopla that surrounded Te’o’s Draft Week entry to Chargers Park two years ago.

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Te’o’s outing was the very definition of “every down,” as the linebacker worked every defensive snap -- 74 in all -- for the first time in his 27-game career.

So, without jinxing anything here, let’s just come out and say it.

Te’o’s feet aren’t made of glass.

Time will tell if his feet are as sturdy as Telesco would like.

But Manti Te’o is not to the San Diego Chargers what Bill Walton, owner of perhaps the most inadequately shaped feet in NBA history, was to the San Diego Clippers.

The closest I come to being a foot doctor is when I insert my size-14s into my mouth, but it seems right to conclude that a 241-pound linebacker taxes his tarsals and metatarsals in a 74-snap performance.

Te’o was smiling after Saturday’s victory, another sign that his two feet, each fractured in his brief Chargers career, were not rebelling.

With Donald Butler out for the first time this year, Te’o playing time stood to increase.

He evidently earned his keep, though. Andrew Gachkar and Reggie Walker are experienced stand-ins, yet coordinator John Pagano stuck with Te’o. Walker was absent from the defense for the third game in a row. Gachkar saw only seven snaps, by far his lowest total since Game 3 at Buffalo.

For most of his rookie season, Te’o left the field on passing downs.

His top-two snap totals for a game before Saturday were the 61-of-78 day last year versus Washington in Week 9, and the 59-of-70 performance at Buffalo.

There’s no cause to slobber over his play, but that, too, is trending upward.

Stopping Colin Kaepernick short on fourth down turned out to be a big deal.

The previous Sunday, on Denver’s second series, he fired off the snap with more haste that what we’d seen. The result was a clean takedown of C.J. Anderson. And three games ago, he defended Patriots playmakers Rob Gronkowski and Shane Vereen to fine effect in the red zone.

There’s still work to be done, especially in defending the run.

If his 51-game career at Notre Dame is to tell us what’s coming -- he improved from year to year, making all seven career interceptions, for example, as a senior -- there’s a bonus to Te’o staying on the field. The more the 23-year-old plays, the more he learns and the faster he’ll play.

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