Bears Pat Mannelly Talks Snapping

“Master of your trade.” Sometimes they are just four words but sometimes they are the perfect description for an individual.  A description of how they have approached their craft over a lifetime. Stop for a second and think about these facts about Pat Mannelly. Pat is a retired long snapper, who formerly played for the Chicago Bears.

After being drafted by the Chicago Bears in the sixth round in 1996, Mannelly snapped the ball 2,282 times during his NFL career without a botched snap. Pat is also the longest tenured player in Chicago Bears history. He is listed third in all-time special teams tackles with 81. When it comes to long snapping in the NFL Pat set the standard awhile back for others to aspire to.

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So, when it came to who we would try to get on this week’s USA Football’s Coach & Coordinator podcast to talk about snapping the football, it was obvious that there was no better resource than Pat Mannelly.  Any special teams coach knows that, as important as your kicker and punter are, if you really want to throw a monkey wrench in the whole operation, go into the game with a subpar snapper. In this podcast, host Keith Grabowski and FirstDown PlayBook pick Mannelly’s brain about coaching a young snapper from the ground up. There is a ton of great information in here for any special teams coach.

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After you listen to this, you are probably also going to want to head over to Pat’s long snapping website Longsnapper.com to get even more information and to have a proven “go to” resource for snapping information year round! Tap on the link or Pat’s picture up above to get there.

We also have given you a taste of the complexity that can be involved for an NFL punting unit when it comes to sorting out a punt block scheme. As an NFL long snapper, these can be very difficult to get sorted out and communicated on game day! Pat Mannelly saw his share of these too.

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