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Rob Demovsky, ESPN Staff WriterOct 15, 2024, 08:07 PM ET
- Rob Demovsky is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Green Bay Packers. He has covered the Packers since 1997 and joined ESPN in 2013. Demovsky is a two-time Wisconsin Sportswriter of the Year as selected by the NSSA. You can follow him on Twitter at @RobDemovsky.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Perhaps the seventh kicker will be the charm for the Green Bay Packers, who signed veteran Brandon McManus on Tuesday.
The sides agreed to a one-year deal, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter, and McManus is expected to kick in Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans at Lambeau Field.
While the Packers used only one kicker, Brayden Narveson, in the first six games of this season, they’ve had six others on the roster since the end of last season. One of them, Alex Hale, remains on the practice squad.
Narveson, a rookie whom the Packers claimed off waivers from the Tennessee Titans in late August, has missed a league-high five field goal attempts this season, including a 44-yarder in Sunday’s win over the Arizona Cardinals.
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Initially, the Packers kept Greg Joseph at the end of the preseason over last year’s kicker, Anders Carlson. They also had James Turner and Jack Podlesny on their 90-man offseason roster at different points.
When asked Monday whether the team was considering a kicking change this week, Packers coach Matt LaFleur said: “I wouldn’t say that right now, no.” However, he said they would “take it by day by day.” That was before the team worked out McManus on Tuesday.
McManus, 33, spent last season with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He made 30 of 37 field goal attempts and all 35 of his extra-point tries in his only season with the team.
He signed a one-year, $3.6 million contract with the Washington Commanders in the offseason but was released in early June after two women who were working as flight attendants on the chartered airline the Jaguars used to fly to London in September 2023 filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault on the trip.
The NFL announced Sept. 30 that it found insufficient evidence that McManus violated the league’s personal conduct policy. League spokesman Brian McCarthy said as part of a statement that “as always, if new evidence is presented it would be taken into consideration.”
Tony Buzbee, an attorney representing the two women, told ESPN on Sept. 30 that the league had not interviewed his clients as part of its investigation. It wasn’t immediately known whether the sides had spoken since.
McManus is a career 81.4% kicker on field goals. He spent the first nine seasons of his career with the Denver Broncos.
The Packers have been searching for a stable replacement since they moved on from their career scoring leader, Mason Crosby, after the 2022 season. In his last season with the Packers, Crosby made 86.2% of his field goals.
Last season, Carlson, a sixth-round pick in 2023, missed 13 total kicks, including field goals and extra points in the regular season and playoffs, the most of any kicker in the league.
A source said the Packers were meeting with Narveson on Tuesday evening, and it was not immediately clear whether the team would try to keep two kickers on the roster.
Information from ESPN’s Michael DiRocco was used in this report.
