Patrick Mannelly understands special teams better than almost anybody in the business. He was the Chicago Bears long snapper for 16 years. He played on some of the best third phase units in franchise history. However, there was a time when things weren’t all good for the team in that area. Especially at the kicker position.
Back in 1999, the Bears were in a similar position to what they are now. They had no definitive answer at kicker and were bringing in a ton of different names to try and sort it out. Among them included Chris Boniol, Jeff Jaeger, Brian Gowins and Jaret Holmes.
Casting a wide net may not have been a bad thing for the fans and coaches, but it sucked for Mannelly because he had to come in and snap for all of those guys. Often for up to two hours at a time. It got to a point where he literally didn’t come in for one of the sessions as he told Adam Jahns of The Athletic.
“Finally, on one Monday night, I went out and had a really good time — like too good of a time,” Mannelly said, laughing. “And he called early at like 7:30. It was like, beep, ‘Hey, it’s Rick here we need you up here by 9.’ I was like, ‘Uh-uh. I’m going to embarrass myself if I go up there.’
“Obviously, I didn’t answer the phone. I never returned the call. I just showed up to work on Wednesday. They were like, ‘You didn’t call us back.’ I was like, ‘Oh you called? Oh, my bad. I had no idea you called.’”
Patrick Mannelly says the big casualty of this competition is the long snapper
In the end, that competition didn’t do much good. All four of those kickers played in at least two games with Boniol going the most at 10. Collectively, they went 19-of-34 on field tries. A year later they had enough and drafted Paul Edinger out of Michigan State in the 6th round.
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No doubt GM Ryan Pace is hoping this time will be different. Thus far the Bears have signed four names for the showdown. It started with Redford Jones, formerly of Tulsa. He was soon followed by Chris Blewitt who’d gone to Pitt and then Elliott Fry, fresh off a stint in the AAF. John Baron from San Diego State completed the mix as an undrafted free agent.
While Mannelly hopes the Bears find an answer, the person he truly feels for is the man who now holds his job.
“I just feel bad for Pat Scales for how many times he’s going to snap to these guys,” Mannelly said with a laugh. “His hamstrings are going to be sore.”
It will be interesting to see if Scales tries to pull a similar fast one with the Bears to get out of one of those sessions in the coming weeks.
