Brandon McManus (Denver Post file)
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Now that Broncos kicker Brandon McManus is on the team’s game-day roster today against the New York Jets, Denver’s 7th-round pick in the 2015 draft officially goes to the New York Giants.
McManus was going to be waived by the Giants in the final week of preseason, but the Broncos’ scouting department liked him and with Matt Prater about to be suspended through the first four games, general manager John Elway executed a conditional trade.
The condition: If McManus was on the Broncos roster in their fifth game, Denver would have to send its 7th-round pick to the Giants. In a perfect world, the Broncos would have put both Prater and McManus through a kicking audition this week — good as Prater was last year, he was inconsistent during the preseason with the threat of the suspension hanging over him — but that would have meant paying the remaining $2.117 million on Prater’s salary.
The Broncos released Prater last Friday and he has already signed with the Detroit Lions and will kick today against the Vikings in Minnesota. .
