Broncos bring veteran kicker Randy Bullock in for a minicamp tryout

After releasing long-time kicker Brandon McManus, the Denver Broncos signed the relatively inexperienced Elliott Fry to a contract. Fry has six NFL FG attempts in his career and none of them are from 50 or longer. Fry’s one miss occurred from 38 yards last season in the Chiefs 36-10 victory over the Steelers.

Unlike Fry, Bullock has a fair amount of NFL experience. Bullock has actually been kicking in the NFL longer than McManus. Bullock’s first NFL season was 2013. Bullock also has decent accuracy from 50+ hitting 14 of 28 in his career with a career long of 57 back in 2019 when he kicked for the Bengals. If Bullock gets the job as the kicker for the 2023 Broncos, it would be his seventh NFL team.

The 33 year old kicker has played for the Texans, Jets, Bengals, Giants, Steelers and Titans (most recently).

While Bullock has been decent from long distance during his career, he is no Brandon McManus. Bullock has never attempted any FG longer than 58 (which he missed back in 2020). Bullock does not have as strong of a leg as McManus. For comparison McManus (whose first season was 2014) has attempted 72 FGs from 50 or longer, or more double the number of attempts that Bullock has. McManus has hit on 55.6% of his attempts from 50 or longer in his career. Although as I chronicled last season, McManus’ accuracy was “bad” once he passed 53 yards of distance. McManus is 13 of 33 (39%) on attempts from 54 or longer and he was only 2 of 6 last season. Admittedly two of those misses were from 63 and 64. McManus hit one from 61 in the final game of the 2021 season, that is his only made FG from 60 or longer.

For comparison Bullock is 3 of 6 on attempts from 54 or longer in his career, but the fact that he only has 6 attempts to McManus 33 from that length should tell you what you need to know. Only four kickers in NFL history have more attempts from 54 or longer than McManus, but all four have better accuracy than Brandon from that distance.

1. Sebastian Janikowski - 23/46, 50%
2. Matt Prater - 28/44, 64%
3. Greg Zuelein - 24/42, 57%
4. Justin Tucker - 20/36, 56%
5. Brandon McManus - 13/33, 39%

If you expand this to kicks from 57 or longer, it makes McManus look even worse than the four kickers above him.

1. Janko - 6/24, 25%
2. Prater - 10/16, 63%
3. Tucker - 5/15, 33%
4. Zuerlein - 9/23, 39%
5. McMissfromfar - 3/15, 20%

McManus is currently tied with Zuerlein and Janikowski for career attempts from 60 or longer. All three kickers have 9 attempts, but Brandon only made one of those. Janko made two and Zuerlein three. The most successful kicker in NFL history is still a free agent right now, Brett Maher, because of his inability to hit extra points in the playoffs last season. Maher is 4 of 4 from 60 or longer in his career.