Jaguars Sign Kicker Brandon McManus, Waive Riley Patterson

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than 48 hours after the Denver Broncos cut kicker Brandon McManus, he has a new job. The Jacksonville Jaguars have signed the veteran McManus and waived kicker Riley Patterson.

Brandon McManus has been with the Broncos since 2014 and was the lone remaining member of Denver’s Super Bowl 50 team. The veteran kicker completed 77.8 percent of field goal attempts and hit 25 of 27 extra-point attempts last season. McManus made 223 of 274 field goal attempts with the Broncos, an 81.4 percent rate that made him one of the most accurate kickers in team history.

The Jaguars have decided to go with the steady veteran McManus over youngster Riley Patterson. Patterson started all 17 games for Jacksonville last season. The second-year kicker hit 30-of-35 regular season field goal attempts (85.7%) for the Jaguars. He was also perfect on three postseason attempts and 36-of-37 on extra point attempts in the regular season.

Patterson has spent two seasons in the NFL, one with Jacksonville and one with Detroit in 2021. I would imagine that Patterson will find work fairly quickly after the solid season that he had with the Jaguars in 2022.

Patterson 11-of-11 from 20-29 yards, 16-of-17 from 30-39, 14-of-17 from 40-49, and 2-for-4 from more than 50 yards. So, the distance was his bugaboo in 2022. However, a camp injury will have him back to work in no time with consistent numbers in the intermediate.