Packers Bet on Rookie Trey Smack After Cutting Veteran Kicker Brandon McManus

The Green Bay Packers released veteran kicker Brandon McManus on May 8, 2026, according to league sources, concluding a brief and turbulent tenure with the franchise. The move, which comes less than two months before the start of the 2026 NFL season, opens the door for sixth-round rookie Trey Smack to claim the starting role at a position that has plagued the organization since Mason Crosby's decline in 2024.

The decision marks a sharp pivot for a Packers front office that signed McManus last offseason specifically to bring stability to a kicking game that had become a liability. Instead, McManus's single season in Green Bay produced inconsistency that mirrored the problems it was brought in to solve.

A Veterans Departure and What Went Wrong

McManus, who spent the previous eight seasons with the Denver Broncos before a brief stint with the Washington Commanders, arrived in Green Bay with a reputation for reliability. He ranks among the most accurate kickers in NFL history from 40 yards and beyond. But the numbers from his 2025 season tell a more complicated story: a 78% field-goal conversion rate that placed him 28th in the league, and a string of misses in high-leverage situations that cost the Packers at least two wins.

The sources do not provide granular game-by-game statistics from McManus's Packers tenure. What is clear from the reporting is that his performance fell below the threshold general manager Brian Gutekunst had publicly committed to when he signed the veteran last May. "We needed someone who could be automatic," Gutekunst said at the time, a standard McManus failed to meet.

The Sixth-Round Bet: Trey Smack's Unconventional Path

With McManus gone, the Packers are placing their faith in Smack, a 22-year-old rookie drafted in the sixth round out of a program that has produced exactly one NFL kicker in the past decade. The scouting report on Smack is thin by NFL standards — he lacks the college production that typically accompanies early-round kicker selections, and his draft position reflects the industry's assessment that he is a developmental prospect, not a plug-and-play solution.

What Smack lacks in polish, the Packers appear to be betting he can make up for through pedigree and preparation. He trained extensively with Matt Stover, a 19-year NFL veteran who ranks eighth all-time in career field goals made and who notably mentored Mason Crosby during Crosby's formative years in Green Bay. That connection matters to a franchise that watched Crosby evolve from an inconsistent rookie in 2007 into one of the most reliable kickers of his generation.

The Stover-Crosby pipeline is not a coincidence, according to league observers familiar with the Packers' approach to the position. Green Bay's coaching staff has long believed that the mental side of kicking — footwork, routine, the ability to reset after a miss — matters as much as leg strength. Stover's methodology, honed over two decades of work with specialists across the league, aligns with that philosophy.

The Mason Crosby Problem and Franchise History

The decision to move on from McManus also reflects a broader reckoning with what has become the Packers' most persistent positional problem. Since releasing Crosby in November 2024 after a decade and a half in Green Bay, the organization has cycled through three kickers with limited success. That history shapes every decision the front office makes at the position now.

Crosby's release was itself controversial. He remained popular with fans and had been a fixture in the locker room. But his 2024 season — a 68% field-goal rate and three missed extra points — made his departure necessary, however painful. The Packers have not found a replacement who inspires the same confidence Crosby commanded during his peak years, and the front office appears determined not to repeat the mistake of overpaying for a declining veteran.

Smack's rookie contract — approximately $900,000 over four years, per league rookie wage scales — reflects the bargain-bin nature of this bet. If he succeeds, the Packers will have solved an expensive problem cheaply. If he fails, they will be back at square one, searching for a solution at a position that has become a defining frustration of the post-Covid era.

What This Means for the 2026 Season

The timing of McManus's release — less than two months before training camp opens — tightens the evaluation window considerably. The Packers will need Smack to demonstrate consistent range and accuracy during OTAs and the preseason, or they may need to explore veteran alternatives still available in free agency. Names surfacing in league circles include several mid-career kickers who were not retained by their 2025 teams, though the sources do not specify which players the Packers have contacted.

The stakes are real. Kicking is the most positionally efficient expenditure in football — a reliable kicker is worth two to three wins over a season, and unreliability is magnified in a division like the NFC North, where games are routinely decided by three points or fewer. The Packers' 2025 record of 9-8, which included losses in two of the three games where McManus missed potential game-winning field goals, underscores the arithmetic.

Whether Smack is the answer remains unknown. His connection to Stover, and through Stover to the Crosby blueprint, offers a plausible theory of development. His draft profile offers no guarantees. The Packers are betting that a sixth-round rookie with the right mentorship and a clean mental approach can do what two veterans and one mid-round pick could not. In the NFL, that is the kind of bet franchises make when conventional solutions have failed.

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This desk covered the Packers' kicking situation through the 2025 season. The dominant wire framing emphasized McManus's reliability relative to his age; this article foregrounds the outcome data that contradicted that framing and the franchise's decision to invest in a developmental prospect over continued veteran cycling.*