thelesterlee
Traveling sucks. Taxis and airports and luggage and terminals and gates and Buffalo Wild Wings bars at noon—the whole experience is daunting but life can be made easier if you simply follow some key rules—none of which are bigger than DO NOT SEXUALLY ASSAULT THE STAFF but NFL kicker, Brandon McManus, couldn’t oblige by that simple rule.
Two women who worked the Jacksonville Jaguars international flight to their Week 4 game in England last season, say McManus got drunk and tried kissing and grinding on them as they very clearly were not interested in anything other than doing their jobs. The women say McManus turned the flight into a “party” and was handing out $100 bills to any of the flight attendants who drank and danced with him.
This was on the way to England, by the way.
They weren’t celebrating a big divisional win.
The Jags hadn’t just clinched a playoff berth.
Nope, this was the 4th week of the season, ON THE WAY to a game in London. Pregaming on your commute to work is always a sign of a mentally and emotionally healthy human. A guy blacking out on the way to work certainly understands social cues and wouldn’t dare cross that line with women who are not interested and are not his wife.
McManus now plays for the Washington Commanders this season but his then-Jaguars coach, Doug Pederson, was asked about this flight from hell. He was weird about it.
“A typical flight is not that way. It’s a business trip, and that’s how we approach it from an organizational standpoint, from a league standpoint. So, when I read that, that part of it is disappointing.”
“I’m not going to get into a ton of those questions right now until I get more information, but we sit down — I’ll just maybe [make] a brief comment — we do sit down, and we want to make sure that the players are together and the coaches together, staff’s together and things of that nature and everybody’s comfortable and has space”.
Saying “no comment” was also an option for Doug Pederson but instead, he wanted to let it be known that his team flights are never parties BUT he wouldn’t know because all of the coaches hang out together and he definitely wasn’t with McManus and wouldn’t know how he behaves.
Thank you, coach.
What’s going on with NFL kickers?
Not a great offseason for NFL placekickers.
First, Harrison Butker became the main character for a few weeks following a passionate sermon, under the guise of a commencement speech, for a local Illinois college with a 93% acceptance rate, where Butker gave some Breitbart talking points and told the young women that their best life is serving their husbands.
Now, Brandon McManus finds himself fighting for his life in court because he could not prevent himself from dry-humping private plane staff while they were handing out blankets and pillows.
I cannot reiterate enough that these are KICKERS we’re talking about.
A position for guys who are not physically capable of playing actual football but have found a loophole to not only make the team but somehow, have the most important job where they frequently find themselves determining the outcomes of games by doing a highly specific action that removes the agency of the other 52-men on the roster who do all the work moving the ball up and down the field only for their seasons to be in the hands of guys who would be air lifted off the turf if they were asked to play literally any other position.
Harrison Butker and Brandon McManus are fortunate to participate in this sport and they’re out here moving like THEY are the stars of the league. Can you imagine getting on a plane with Trevor Lawrence and thinking the women around you would be more interested in you than in the handsome model you work with?
The NFL has a kicker problem. Let’s pray the season starts before Justin Tucker’s gang ties are brought to the forefront or Younghoe Koo gets arrested for driving with an 8 ball in his system.
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What’s going on with NFL kickers? Leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee. Let me know if you think McManus should be dropped into a volcano.
