Brandon McManus was signed by the Green Bay Packers in October 2024, after the kicker had spent time on the rosters of the Indianapolis Colts, New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Jacksonville Jaguars and Washington Commanders.
On March 4, McManus agreed to a three-year, $15.3 million contract with the Packers, including a $5 million signing bonus.
He returned to action Sunday night against Pittsburgh after missing two weeks due to an injury. McManus first said he could play those weeks, but head coach Matt LaFleur disagreed.
Do you and LaFleur have a good relationship?
He explained his thing, just like if a quarterback had something with his arm or shoulder, no matter how small or big it is, it would be a major concern, because that’s his main tool just like my main tool is my leg. Just like a worker, if their hammer was broken, it would be hard for them to work.
So I understood what it was. It just being tongue-in-cheek with it. Like I said, I planned on playing, that was my goal, and then we had that conversation on the field and then we had a conversation in the locker room afterwards, what is the best thing moving forward and grouply, we decided that was probably best to limit the time rather than missing a lot of time.
Were you tempted to lie and say there was no pain so you could kick?
No, I told the truth. I told them that I felt comfortable playing but, I said, will I have pain? Yes. I knew I had pain four years ago, too. When I was doing the warmup, I went back to 55 yards and was still making them by 5, 6 yards, in warmups, so it wasn’t hindering me powerwise.
It was just more, what’s the smartest play, this early in the season, with a good team, whereas in ‘22, it was the end of the season, not necessarily a good team — I loved my players on the team but … otherwise, we weren’t going anywhere.
You did keep kicking the rest of the year, and you tried a 63-yarder. After you kicked in that game, did the pain subside?
I don’t believe the next week I had much pain, no. Not to my recollection.
What are you doing to get your leg right?
I’m not going to get into what I’m doing, but I think it is (helping). I believe the strength has gone up.
Remember being in Lucas (Havrisik’s) shoes trying to make it?
When I came back and we’d had the conversation and I knew I wasn’t going, speaking to him based on how I would feel if someone wanted to say something to me, it would be short, so I just told him, obviously, ‘Have a great game. And go make yourself some money.’ That’s the truth. This year, there’s been a decent amount of kicking changes around the league, and as someone teams could see around and have some game film that they could potentially trust, it’s huge, so I kept it short and sweet with that.
Hard to go through at that point in your career?
Yeah, the NFL is a weird place. My first year I sat out, I led the league in field-goal percentage in the preseason and in kickoffs. The second year I did the same thing. And I was cut by the Colts, which I understand. I was trying to replace Adam Vinatieri. But if not, I knew it was a good learning experience for me to be around him. But I thought I’d get another chance.
Back then, they had a bunch of old kickers in the league that no one was moving off of. Now, there was maybe two kicker changes that whole year. Now, teams I think we go through six or seven teams every year that are doing it.
And then my second year, I thought I’d beaten Josh Brown out again, led the league in field goal percentage and kickoffs, so that was frustrating, they cut me in the morning and then they ended up trading me to Denver later that day, so then I finally got the break I was looking for to get my foot in the door, which, that’s kind of what it is around here, just trying to get your foot in the door and then succeeding.
You obviously have to succeed once you get your foot in the door. I played the first four games when Matt Prater was on suspension, and they ended up going with me after that. and I ended up playing there for almost 10 years.
