brandon mcmanus is on the way out in Green Bay. The Packers are releasing the 34-year-old kicker on Friday after selecting Trey Smack in the sixth round of the 2026 NFL Draft.
The move frees up $945,097 in cap space and leaves $4,333,334 in dead money. For a team that had already added a rookie kicker, the decision turns the position over immediately and reshapes the financial hit on the roster.
Green Bay Turns to Trey Smack
Green Bay drafted Smack before moving on from McManus, and that sequence tells the story. The Packers spent a sixth-round pick on a kicker, then cleared the veteran from the depth chart rather than carry both into the next phase of the roster cycle.
McManus had been with the Packers since October 2024 and re-signed on a three-year deal in March of last year. His release closes a short run in Green Bay that included 14 games in 2025.
McManus In Green Bay
In those 14 games, McManus made 24 of 30 field goal attempts and 32 of 33 extra-point tries. That is an 80 percent rate on field goals and 97 percent on extra points, a split that shows steadiness on kicks inside normal range and misses that added pressure at the position.
His path to Green Bay was long. McManus originally signed with the Colts in 2013, lasted only a few months there, then caught on with the Giants at the end of the 2014 season before New York traded him to the Broncos in 2015 for a conditional seventh-round pick.
Broncos Years And Aftermath
He returned to Denver in 2017 on a one-year restricted tender worth $2.746 million, later agreed to a three-year, $11.254 million extension, and then signed a four-year, $17.2 million extension in 2020. The Broncos later released him with two years left on that deal, when he was due base salaries of $3.65 million and $3.85 million.
McManus then signed one-year deals with the Jaguars in 2023 and with Washington, which released him before he played because of a lawsuit for sexual harassment. He landed in Green Bay in October 2024 and now exits after the Packers used the draft to prepare for a change at kicker.
The release gives the Packers immediate cap relief and a clean handoff to Smack. For McManus, it ends a brief but productive stop that started with a late-season arrival and ended with a rookie taking his place.
