The Denver Broncos have purged the, with only 33 players from 2022's opening day roster still around. The exodus has been balanced with an aggressive approach in free agency, with the Walton/Penner ownership group bankrolling Sean Payton's maneuvers to rebuild the Broncos' roster in his image.
There are some veterans still straddling the cap-casualty line. One of them could be veteran placekicker Brandon McManus, according to The Denver Gazette's Woody Paige — a decades-long Broncos insider.
Brandon McManus is the last man – player or coach – standing from Super Bowl 50, and he is not completely safe after the past season’s subpar performance. Punter Riley Dixon, drafted in the seventh round in 2016, is being recycled.
Indeed, McManus wasn't very good last year, and the Broncos have already taken steps to upgrade one specialist with Dixon's return. McManus connected on just 78.8% of his field-goal attempts, the third-worst mark of his career, and he missed a pair of extra points.
Although he has a big leg, McManus has never been all that accurate from 50-plus yards. He finished 8-of-13 (61.5%) from long distance last year.
Then there's McManus' play in the clutch. When the chips are down, he's always been a flip-a-coin kicker, with the Broncos' 2015 Super Bowl season being the exception.
Unlike the punter situation, the Broncos have yet to bring in another placekicker to challenge or supplant McManus, which strongly hints at him reprising his role in 2023. It's possible that the overall coaching malaise that hung over the Broncos last year, including on special teams, was a big culprit in McManus' lackluster body of work.
However, as a veteran specialist, one would assume that McManus would be relatively impervious to such coaching incompetence. After all, like a golfer, all McManus really focuses on is his stroke. How much can an in-over-his-head coach like Dwayne Stukes get in the middle of that?
McManus, 31, is a locker-room leader, serving as the Broncos' NFLPA representative for years. As a top-10 highest-paid kicker in the NFL, the Broncos deserve better from McManus. He might be the last remaining player from the Super Bowl 50 roster, but the Broncos are beyond being slave to nostalgia after seven long years of missing the playoffs.
If one of Denver's most deeply-rooted insiders is saying that McManus isn't "completely safe," then perhaps Payton is ruminating on making a change at kicker between now and training camp. Keep an eye on the 2023 NFL draft to see if the Broncos draft or sign a young kicker.
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