Brandon McManus

[rmontro]

That is why I gave up golf 50 years ago. Got tired of having to play on the wrong fairway.

I gave up golf a long time ago too. I actually started the sport in my 40s. I loved it, but I just wasn't good at it, probably because I started it so late. I had a lot of interests, so I decided to give it up and concentrate more on things I was better at, because it was expensive, took up time and energy, etc. I kind of regret giving it up, because sometimes I miss it. And of course I convinced myself I had quit right when I was on the verge of making a breakthrough.
There's actually some truth to that, I had figured out a key thing that I had been doing wrong all along. Oh well.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Ironically, my right shoulder got torn up in my senior year, not from sports but from taking some girl roller skating. It popped out like 7 times before surgical repair. I lost al the elasticity and could no longer throw a baseball more than 100 feet. So tennis, for some reason, over team, was like therapy and I played for 42 years.

That is a wild story milani my friend! 3 months ago (Aug 6) I had I had my left shoulder replaced. It was an "anatomical" replacement, meaning simply it would look like my original shoulder structure after the new parts were installed. (If the rotator cuff is damaged, a "reverse" replacement is required, where the ball is placed on the end of the clavicle and the socket is placed on top of the upper arm bone - the humerus.)

After reading what happened to you (and sorry milani, having a laugh at your expense at the roller-skating story) I am amazed you could play tennis at all, much less singles, much less for 42 years. Good for you! It seems likely your rotator cuff would have been damaged, but if that was true, I doubt you could play tennis.

More likely this happened when your body was much more elastic, and the dislocations did not harm the RC.

My story is far less ****. My body has been invaded by osteoarthritis (thanks Mom....). So at age 71, I've had both knees replaced (2023) and this year my right hip and left shoulder. I'll never walk through a regular metal detector again without blowing it up.

I ran a lot of marathons in my 30s and 40s. I had a blast but it sped up the damage to my knees. Now I spin 5 to 6x/week and my cardio fitness is very good.

Anyway, I've heard a lot of strange stories about how guys have messed up their shoulder joint. Yours is the best milani!

 

[Heyjoe4]

Good points Milani. The only thing I’d point out in that FG. IMO a Hail Mary has a better chance of a Win.
We know that Rodgers used to sling some and our LOS was as far back as our 40 yardline area (Detroit Miracle) Here we were past midfield, so we’re throwing from just inside the 50 yardline on the Eagles side. While not easy, if Love has 3.5 seconds of time he can easily reach the paint and guys will be there when the ball drops.
We also have Watson 6’4” 38.5” vertical and Musgrave 6’6” 36” vertical and Wicks 6’ 1.5” 39” vertical. Your minimum is Bo at a 5’11” 38” vertical. These were guys who were picked for their athletic testing as your Receiving targets. Use them.
Hard to out jump 6’4 and 6’6 when they also have bigger Verticals.

Personally I would not have kicked that unless on the preceding play we picked up 4-6 yards and get out of bounds. In the colder weather I’m guess but that’s really more like a 70 yarder feel. Which I’m guessing is why the ball sailed away. McManus had to crush that ball and you’ll lose accuracy.

No. I would’ve rolled out and thrown the 50 yard pass. If you catch you Win. Might’ve thought differently if a TD was worth 3pt. Here even if you make a 69 yard feel Kick? You still didn’t Win.

PS. I’d add that part of the reason it going wide doesn’t bother me? Yiu can have the most accurate Kick in the world. If it doesn’t travel 65 yards it’s a meaningless Kick. Lean distance over accuracy. Very similar to the concept of not throwing a Hail Mary out of bounds. I’d rather it comes up 15 yards short in bounds than land in the chalk.

Very interesting take OS, and I am inclined to agree. And your comment about distance is spot on. Every NFL kicker should be able to clear the plane of the goalposts from 60-65 yards, even longer under the new rules. But it has to be between the uprights. So force is used to get the ball that far, and that hurts accuracy.

I realized McManus had been brought back too soon when he missed a 56 yarder - right on target but 3 yards short. That just shouldn't happen and, IMO, showed that McManus had not recovered. (I forget the game, maybe the Steelers?)

But yeah, expecting him to m make such a long kick would be hard enough in early September. The temperature on Monday night was below freezing. The Hail Mary would have been a better option.

 

[milani]

That is a wild story milani my friend! 3 months ago (Aug 6) I had I had my left shoulder replaced. It was an "anatomical" replacement, meaning simply it would look like my original shoulder structure after the new parts were installed. (If the rotator cuff is damaged, a "reverse" replacement is required, where the ball is placed on the end of the clavicle and the socket is placed on top of the upper arm bone - the humerus.)

After reading what happened to you (and sorry milani, having a laugh at your expense at the roller-skating story) I am amazed you could play tennis at all, much less singles, much less for 42 years. Good for you! It seems likely your rotator cuff would have been damaged, but if that was true, I doubt you could play tennis.

More likely this happened when your body was much more elastic, and the dislocations did not harm the RC.

My story is far less ****. My body has been invaded by osteoarthritis (thanks Mom....). So at age 71, I've had both knees replaced (2023) and this year my right hip and left shoulder. I'll never walk through a regular metal detector again without blowing it up.

I ran a lot of marathons in my 30s and 40s. I had a blast but it sped up the damage to my knees. Now I spin 5 to 6x/week and my cardio fitness is very good.

Anyway, I've heard a lot of strange stories about how guys have messed up their shoulder joint. Yours is the best milani!

Well. The way it happened was that it was the first girl I had ever dated. It did not last long and in retrospect she was not exactly hot to trot. I never had roller skated before. So to please I went with it. After a few spins I got going a lot faster but did not know how to stop. So my foolish instinct was to grab the yellow railing at full speed..SNAP!. This was November. It kept popping and popping. Finally by June I saw the orthopedic specialist. He said they would cut into me in August so I could half enjoy my summer before going to college. He called it a Bankart repair with several screws and staples. By November I got out of the shoulder retainer but they never gave me any therapy. When I took up tennis several years later I began short cutting my serve and overhead. Gradually, I got some elasticity back over the years. I was actually playing better at 35 than 25. I played more singles for a while because I could run. I was only 155-160 pounds for that early decade. In a strange way I never developed tennis elbow because the injury seemed to force my backswing and follow through to stay straight and compact. But the scar tissue is all there to this day.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Well. The way it happened was that it was the first girl I had ever dated. It did not last long and in retrospect she was not exactly hot to trot. I never had roller skated before. So to please I went with it. After a few spins I got going a lot faster but did not know how to stop. So my foolish instinct was to grab the yellow railing at full speed..SNAP!. This was November. It kept popping and popping. Finally by June I saw the orthopedic specialist. He said they would cut into me in August so I could half enjoy my summer before going to college. He called it a Bankart repair with several screws and staples. By November I got out of the shoulder retainer but they never gave me any therapy. When I took up tennis several years later I began short cutting my serve and overhead. Gradually, I got some elasticity back over the years. I was actually playing better at 35 than 25. I played more singles for a while because I could run. I was only 155-160 pounds for that early decade. In a strange way I never developed tennis elbow because the injury seemed to force my backswing and follow through to stay straight and compact. But the scar tissue is all there to this day.

Wow that's an amazing story milani. I think we're about the same age, and so I'm sure an ortho surgeon today would have gone a different route. Also interesting that tennis helped to loosen the shoulder, and scar tissue, so that you had more range of motion at 35 than 25.

Did you do any damage to your rotator cuff? It doesn't sound like it, given that you could play tennis.

Good example of one benefit of youth. Our younger bodies are much more pliable, much more forgiving. Anyway good for you milani. The first-date story is a classic.

My first date in HS was with a girl named Greta. If you watched Game of Thrones she sorta looked like that big, female knight who hung out with Jamie Lannister. If you didn't watch GOT, I'll just say that Greta was a sizable (tall) girl with Eastern European roots.

She wasn't exactly hot to trot either, but neither was I. I don't have an interesting story like yours, but the first date with Great was the last. (And what parent names a girl "Greta". Sounds like a character from The Sound of Music.)

I'm happy to say things got much better (mostly) from there.

 

[OldSchool101]

Very interesting take OS, and I am inclined to agree. And your comment about distance is spot on. Every NFL kicker should be able to clear the plane of the goalposts from 60-65 yards, even longer under the new rules. But it has to be between the uprights. So force is used to get the ball that far, and that hurts accuracy.

I realized McManus had been brought back too soon when he missed a 56 yarder - right on target but 3 yards short. That just shouldn't happen and, IMO, showed that McManus had not recovered. (I forget the game, maybe the Steelers?)

But yeah, expecting him to m make such a long kick would be hard enough in early September. The temperature on Monday night was below freezing. The Hail Mary would have been a better option.

Yep. I’m not a Golfer, but I’ve played just enough to learn from someone who walked on at VA tech. They saw my friend at a local driving range while the gold team was practicing. The Coach approached him and he got a free ride scholarship from VA Tech. He told me to always remember on a Put to go a little long, just past the cup. The theory being he had many great puts perfectly in line, but came up an inch short. That’s worse than missing the cup wide but having the correct distance. I always aim through the hole and that advice Won me my only singular golf accolade. We tied 1st place of 24 teams in a Circuit City “Captains Choice” Tournament. My only contribution to those guys was I hit a bunch of 15-30 foot putts. I really owed that small slice of success to my friend. Every put I heard him saying that in my ear and it’s as if he played those Putts while coaching me. He saw the potential in me, but recognized my weakness. They always let me Putt last after that first long sink. Make long or Miss long is the lesson.

PS. Two of the Managers I played with played Football at Collegiate and Pro level. Warren (Koegel) stood every bit of 6’5” (trust me he ain’t no 6’3” like his football card showed. He could drive a ball so far you couldn’t see it land. Warren shared many personal stories about playing for Paterno and Madden. One of the Nicest men I’ve ever met.

 

[Magooch]

Just a little note.

Out of all kickers who have attempted a field goal this year (40), McManus ranks 38th in expected points added (34 attempts).

Lucas Havrisik (10 attempts) is 17th, and is 4th in the league when adjusted for EPA per kick attempted.

(If you adjust to a slightly higher minimum qualifying number of kicks - say minimum 10 field goals attempted - McManus is still ~34th)

The gap is pretty stark too. The top three kickers in the league right now (Boswell, Folk, and Pineiro) all have over 17 expected points added. The top 5 are all at +10 EPA or above, and overall there are 29 kickers with a positive kicking EPA. There are just 11 players who have attempted a field goal this year and have a negative kicking EPA.

McManus currently sits at -9.8 expected points added, which as mentioned is 38/40 kickers. Adjusted per-kick that is -0.29...which also ranks 38th out of 40.

Now I am willing to chalk some of that off to injury/not being fully healthy, but the continued insistence to stick with McManus for the past few weeks has been nothing short of a disaster. We had a blocked field goal vs the Browns, a miss vs the Panthers, and passed up some (theoretically) makeable field goals vs the Eagles before missing one to lose the game (and that's to say nothing of situations vs Cleveland/Carolina in which we might've passed up a potential FG situation). It's not unreasonable to say that in spite of our horrific offensive performances we could still have zero losses right now if we'd handled this kicking situation better.

 

[OldSchool101]

Just a little note.

Out of all kickers who have attempted a field goal this year (40), McManus ranks 38th in expected points added (34 attempts).

Lucas Havrisik (10 attempts) is 17th, and is 4th in the league when adjusted for EPA per kick attempted.

(If you adjust to a slightly higher minimum qualifying number of kicks - say minimum 10 field goals attempted - McManus is still ~34th)

The gap is pretty stark too. The top three kickers in the league right now (Boswell, Folk, and Pineiro) all have over 17 expected points added. The top 5 are all at +10 EPA or above, and overall there are 29 kickers with a positive kicking EPA. There are just 11 players who have attempted a field goal this year and have a negative kicking EPA.

McManus currently sits at -9.8 expected points added, which as mentioned is 38/40 kickers. Adjusted per-kick that is -0.29...which also ranks 38th out of 40.

Now I am willing to chalk some of that off to injury/not being fully healthy, but the continued insistence to stick with McManus for the past few weeks has been nothing short of a disaster. We had a blocked field goal vs the Browns, a miss vs the Panthers, and passed up some (theoretically) makeable field goals vs the Eagles before missing one to lose the game (and that's to say nothing of situations vs Cleveland/Carolina in which we might've passed up a potential FG situation). It's not unreasonable to say that in spite of our horrific offensive performances we could still have zero losses right now if we'd handled this kicking situation better.

Yeah. I guess I understood the initial decision to bring him back if he thought he was good to go. I mean last year he was one of the most consistent Kickers around. I also don’t blame a blocked Kick as much on McNamath as much as his protection. So that wouldn’t be factored much if at all on the initial decision to bring him back. Also that 64 yarder was pushing it. I’m no expert but if you’ve got a recent Quad injury that sounds like a good way to exasperate it. Kick a 64 in the freezing cold. Not too intelligent imo.

Although once he missed that 44 yarder I’d be speculative. On the second 43 yarder it’s now a problem. That = the number of misses he had across season last year. We already had another Kicker on the Roster, so that was our opportunity to give him a couple weeks off. Havrisik was on a roll and you go with your hot hand when it comes to any position where there’s even an inkling of injury concerns.

I guess I give it a failure overall, but we’re also benefiting from some hindsight.

 

[OldSchool101]

I still think Kickers like him (or Crosby) are a special breed. They don’t let things get in their heads too much. That’s why they can be so successful they block stuff out and are 99% focused on their job. If this was Narveson I’d be sweaty psalms. McNamath could just as easily hit 10 in a row. It would not surprise me.

My only concern is distance. That’s where I think he could tweak his injury. Hes probably not ideal past around 50 yards right now

PS. I initially said twerk his injury by accident. I didn’t trust you guys to behave so I changed it!

 

[Magooch]

Yeah it's hard to say, admittedly it's all speculation at this point

For instance we can't just assume Havrisik would've hit all the same kicks as McManus, or that he would've made McManus' misses as well. Maybe it is all a wash.

Sometimes a kick is blocked due to your protection, but sometimes you get a kick blocked because your kicker hits it a little more flat trajectory because that's what he feels he needs to do to get more distance. Vs Cleveland for instance I tend to think that was probably a coverage issue but maybe a bit of both mixed in.

This past week, it's not really that reasonable to fault McManus for missing from 64 (or would it really be reasonable to say we make that with Havrisik, necessarily) BUT we also passed up two kicks in the upper 50s...those very well could've been makes for Havrisik; either one of those makes it and it's a whole different ballgame.

Overall, I'm still just a bit confused as to the approach here and why with a fully fit Havrisik sitting on the roster they are telling us for weeks now that McManus is healthy but their actions/approach say otherwise. Are they just afraid of insulting the veteran if they tell him he's going to sit a few weeks when he is (by his own recent admission) not 100%? In spite of Havrisik's success for us, do they still think that big-picture a less-than-100% McManus gives us better prospects? Just can't understand it.

 

[rmontro]

Overall, I'm still just a bit confused as to the approach here and why with a fully fit Havrisik sitting on the roster they are telling us for weeks now that McManus is healthy but their actions/approach say otherwise. Are they just afraid of insulting the veteran if they tell him he's going to sit a few weeks when he is (by his own recent admission) not 100%? In spite of Havrisik's success for us, do they still think that big-picture a less-than-100% McManus gives us better prospects? Just can't understand it.

Sometimes I wonder. With people spending time together and building relationships, if decisions aren't sometimes made out of loyalty to a player or person, instead of what might be objectively better for the team?

 

[milani]

Wow that's an amazing story milani. I think we're about the same age, and so I'm sure an ortho surgeon today would have gone a different route. Also interesting that tennis helped to loosen the shoulder, and scar tissue, so that you had more range of motion at 35 than 25.

Did you do any damage to your rotator cuff? It doesn't sound like it, given that you could play tennis.

Good example of one benefit of youth. Our younger bodies are much more pliable, much more forgiving. Anyway good for you milani. The first-date story is a classic.

My first date in HS was with a girl named Greta. If you watched Game of Thrones she sorta looked like that big, female knight who hung out with Jamie Lannister. If you didn't watch GOT, I'll just say that Greta was a sizable (tall) girl with Eastern European roots.

She wasn't exactly hot to trot either, but neither was I. I don't have an interesting story like yours, but the first date with Great was the last. (And what parent names a girl "Greta". Sounds like a character from The Sound of Music.)

I'm happy to say things got much better (mostly) from there.

Slightly different. The bankart repair is for a torn anterior labrum of the shoulder socket. It is caused by severe and constant dislocations. It runs up to the rotator but is more in the lower front part of the socket. The crazy things we did just for the attention of some girl. I never learned their playbook to this day.
Greta is a beautiful name. Coincidentally, in the original foreign movie, Nosferatu, which is the silent movie version of Dracula in 1922, starred a German actress named Greta Schroeder. She was beautiful.

 

[weeds]

Hilarious!! My baseball swing did not work for me in golf. One time in Hawaii I hit the side of a high rise condo. Another time in Vegas I hit some player on the fairway in the leg. And to top that off I sliced a drive over a fence on the right side of the fairway and the ball hit the curved center of the road and bounced back over the fence and back onto the fairway. I knew this was not my game. So I took up tennis instead.

Golf.. ugh... in high school I launched a HUGE chunk of dirt/grass about 25 feet and hit the gym teacher square in the back. Ball never moved.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Yep. I’m not a Golfer, but I’ve played just enough to learn from someone who walked on at VA tech. They saw my friend at a local driving range while the gold team was practicing. The Coach approached him and he got a free ride scholarship from VA Tech. He told me to always remember on a Put to go a little long, just past the cup. The theory being he had many great puts perfectly in line, but came up an inch short. That’s worse than missing the cup wide but having the correct distance. I always aim through the hole and that advice Won me my only singular golf accolade. We tied 1st place of 24 teams in a Circuit City “Captains Choice” Tournament. My only contribution to those guys was I hit a bunch of 15-30 foot putts. I really owed that small slice of success to my friend. Every put I heard him saying that in my ear and it’s as if he played those Putts while coaching me. He saw the potential in me, but recognized my weakness. They always let me Putt last after that first long sink. Make long or Miss long is the lesson.

PS. Two of the Managers I played with played Football at Collegiate and Pro level. Warren (Koegel) stood every bit of 6’5” (trust me he ain’t no 6’3” like his football card showed. He could drive a ball so far you couldn’t see it land. Warren shared many personal stories about playing for Paterno and Madden. One of the Nicest men I’ve ever met.

Great golf analogy OS, putting through the hole is akin to kicking beyond the goal posts. Because I'd rather have seen McManus miss that kick left or right but with enough distance than to fall three yards short win a 56 yard kick. And he would have made that kick if he could have put 5 more yards on it. (I'm no golfer either. The times I have played, the most frustrating part was hitting a putt short of the hole.)

The new rules allow the kicking team to get three balls in advance so they can squeeze it, kiss it, pray over it - whatever, and apparently this is a significant move versus kicking a fresh ball. Who knew!

I don't remember where I read it, but with this new rule, kicks of 60 plus yards will become like kicks of 50 plus under the old rules.

Interesting to have one degree of separation to Madden and JoePa. I'm sure you've heard some interesting stories.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Golf.. ugh... in high school I launched a HUGE chunk of dirt/grass about 25 feet and hit the gym teacher square in the back. Ball never moved.

Now that is LMAO funny weeds. Hitting the teacher is funny enough, but leaving the ball unscathed makes it a classic story. Sounds very much like a summary of my golf career, such as it was. A lack of hand/eye coordination kept me away from baseball (even softball, I couldn't hit it) and of course, golf.

On the rare occasions when I actually got a ball in the air, it would take a vicious right hook (I golf left-handed.). It got to the point that I'd face up to 30 degrees to the left of where I wanted the ball to go so the hook might work. It was a very, very short experiment with the sport.

 

[Voyageur]

Golf. I could drive a ball 250-300 yards off the tee. The problem was, where was it going? I think my fairway landings were in the 10% to 15% range. The rest were scattered in both directions and sometimes ending up with the ball being nearly as far away from the pin as it was when I teed off. That was the good part of my game. The rest was downhill.

There was one time when I went golfing alone and my oldest son asked if he could tag along and be my "caddy." We had a great time on that course. I shot the best round of golf I ever did in my whole life, and I think he was responsible for it. The game itself didn't matter as much as just being out there with him. I shot a two over on that 9 hole course and I never realized that I'd had par 7 holes and nothing worse than a bogie.

I never repeated anything near that. I was a high 80s to low 100s golfer depending on how hard the ground was. The softer the ground the better. I wasn't afraid of trying to act like an excavator hitting a ball when the ground wasn't like a rock.

 

[rmontro]

If we're talking about golf horrors, I was the only person I knew who hit the ball and it ended up behind me. The poor guys who played with me didn't know where to stand.

 

[OldSchool101]

My misery loves company. Thanks for the laughs.

I golfed so bad that I single handedly turned my Pitching Wedge into my BItching Wedge.

I’ve always been very comfortable with letting my emotions out. One kid who I worked with growing up always saw me as a goody two shoes, Christian boy who didn’t smoke. didn’t drink (I got an OWI and that’s designed especially for me “Oldschool Was Intoxicated”
Didn’t swear. Didn’t didn’t didn’t. He was talking to a friend of mine about that very thing when I looked at him and noticed he was staring at me. So I guess I yelled across the room “what the F are YOU looking at?! He died rolling on the ground it took him off guard so. He told me he’d never doubt me again.

 

[Pugger]

Very interesting take OS, and I am inclined to agree. And your comment about distance is spot on. Every NFL kicker should be able to clear the plane of the goalposts from 60-65 yards, even longer under the new rules. But it has to be between the uprights. So force is used to get the ball that far, and that hurts accuracy.

I realized McManus had been brought back too soon when he missed a 56 yarder - right on target but 3 yards short. That just shouldn't happen and, IMO, showed that McManus had not recovered. (I forget the game, maybe the Steelers?)

But yeah, expecting him to m make such a long kick would be hard enough in early September. The temperature on Monday night was below freezing. The Hail Mary would have been a better option.

If McManus was brought back too soon while having another kicker on the roster (stiil!) tells me this coaching staff is a collection of incompetent boobs.

 

[Pugger]

I stopped playing golf years ago because I was dreadful. I was one of those who got excited if I scored under 100....on 9 holes.

 

[OldSchool101]

If McManus was brought back too soon while having another kicker on the roster (stiil!) tells me this coaching staff is a collection of incompetent boobs.

This is obviously imo. Theres some reasonable speculation he was still not fully healthy because Bulaga said he had told Aikman in an interview? Just going off hearsay. Bulaga and the boys were speculating that McManus is feeding a different version to our Staff. Not exactly sure his motivation. Could be he just wants to play and he really believes he’s can contribute or he’s watching another Kicker in his spot perform spectacularly and he’s competitive and doesn’t want to be “showed up”.
Me thinks maybe a combination of both or he’s convinced himself he’s good to go to a level that’s acceptable etc.

As far as Coaching. They can only go off what they see in practice. From what I’m hearing is he’s making the vast majority of kicks. It’s not like a Coach feels his every twinge of pain here. They probably ask him and McNamath doesn’t want to appear fragile and he’s a competitor. I guess I’ve fine it myself. I’ve shown up to work with a minor injury and Boss asked you “are you ok to go?” because he sees the limp etc.
You’re already there and you answer “yes Boss”. It’s not as much a lie as you’re just wanting to get on stage and sometimes the best way to move forward is push yourself to go through the regular routine. I can’t fault a guy for that. Although the Coaches sometimes have to protect a player from himself.

 

[Pkrjones]

Of course the coaching staff needs to protect a player from himself. With 2 kickers on the 53, and kicker #2 kicking extremely well, there is no need to rush #1 back. When they didn't trust McManus to kick longer against Carolina it was asinine to NOT play Havrisik against the Eagles. So many dumb decisions, not just from MLF.

 

[gopkrs]

Of course the coaching staff needs to protect a player from himself. With 2 kickers on the 53, and kicker #2 kicking extremely well, there is no need to rush #1 back. When they didn't trust McManus to kick longer against Carolina it was asinine to NOT play Havrisik against the Eagles. So many dumb decisions, not just from MLF.

Sure seems that way

 

[milani]

If McManus was brought back too soon while having another kicker on the roster (stiil!) tells me this coaching staff is a collection of incompetent boobs.

I think McManus lobbied both Bisaccia and MLF to play because Luke was opening eyes. So he led them to believe he was fine. The coaching staff should have seen through this and at least waited another week or two.

 

[gopkrs]

I think McManus lobbied both Bisaccia and MLF to play because Luke was opening eyes. So he led them to believe he was fine. The coaching staff should have seen through this and at least waited another week or two.

Well they do have practice