How much of an improvement can Packers fans expect?
This week, the Green Bay Packers signed former Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Brandon McManus and released the much-maligned Brayden Narveson. I do not want to look past the allegations against McManus. These have been covered on our site with the most recent updates as of posting here. With that said, the sole purpose of this particular article is to cover McManus as a kicker.
Analyzing kickers using the most commonly cited numbers can be difficult. Raw field goal percentage has issues with difficulty. If a kicker attempts a lot of long-distance kicks, their FG% may be lower even though they are a better kicker. The other issue is weather. Kicking in a dome is easier than kicking outdoors. Kicking at altitude in a place like Denver is easier than kicking at sea level. Kicks in September are easier than kicks in the snow and cold of December.
Perhaps the best way I have seen to attempt to account for these factors so far is the way that DVOA looks at the kicking game. It takes into account not only the expected points from various distances, but also stadium type and weather conditions of the game. Therefore it punishes kickers in domes and in Denver, and rewards kickers in places like Green Bay, Buffalo, or Chicago, which have a more difficult kick diet due to weather and surface. The full explanation for the factors taken into account is explained below from FTN, which is now the host of DVOA:
Field goal kicking is measured differently. Measuring kickers by field goal percentage is a bit absurd, as it assumes that all field goals are of equal difficulty. In our metric, each field goal is compared to the average number of points scored on all field goal attempts from that distance over the past 15 years. The value of a field goal increases as distance from the goal line increases. Kickoffs, punts, and field goals are then adjusted based on weather and altitude. It will surprise no one to learn that it is easier to kick the ball in Denver or a dome than it is to kick the ball in Buffalo in December. Because we do not yet have enough data to tailor our adjustments specifically to each stadium, each one is assigned to one of four categories: Cold, Warm, Dome, and Denver. There is also an additional adjustment dropping the value of field goals in Florida (because the warm temperatures allow the ball to carry better).
If we look at the Packers this year, they are unsurprisingly horrendous at FG/XP DVOA. Only the New York Jets, who managed to surpass Green Bay this week with a pair of missed field goals, are worse than the Packers and it is by .1 DVOA. The difference between the Packers at 31st and the Bills at 30th (Tyler Bass also missed a field goal on Monday night, the wind was really something) is the same gap as between the Bills and Ravens who rank 25th. The Packers kicking game is, quite obviously, a mess.
So how has Brandon McManus ranked over the course of the past few years? Last year, McManus’ first out of the thin air of Denver, he ranked 21st in FG/XP DVOA. For reference, Anders Carlson ranked 26th. The year prior, his last in Denver, he ranked 22nd. In 2021 he ranked 14th, and in 2020 he ranked 10th.
Diving into his statistics by various distances, a pretty stark difference begins to show. Over the past four years, McManus is just over 90% from inside forty yards and an outstanding 95% from 40-49 yards (though he is coming off an 11/13 year last season). Where McManus struggles compared to his peers is on longer field goals. He makes fewer than 60% of them. The Packers can strategize around those struggles a, though. When the Packers have fourth and short-ish around the opponent’s 35- to 40-yard line, they should lean to go a bit more than they normally would knowing that McManus doesn’t become particularly reliable until they get around or inside the opponent’s 30.
Strictly as a kicker, McManus does look like an upgrade. The Packers should no longer have perhaps the league’s worst field goal unit. Instead, it should be merely below average, which given what we’ve seen so far, might just feel like prime Justin Tucker.