Broncos kicker Brandon McManus helped Denver win the 2016 Super Bowl. A Lansdale native, McManus starred at North Penn High School and Temple. Photo by Al Thompson.

SANTA CLARA: After helping his team win Super Bowl 50, one of the first things Denver Broncos kicker Brandon McManus said he wants to do this offseason is pay a visit to North Penn High School, where his career started about a decade ago. The Knights football program, as well as Temple, gave him the opportunity to hone his skills — physically and mentally – to arrive where he did on February 7, 2016…A World Champion.

“I’m definitely coming back to Lansdale in the offseason,” McManus said at his locker after the Super Bowl. “I’m going to bring that ring back to the high school so everyone can see it and share that moment we me. I took a lot from that high school and that area, a lot of that still sticks with me so I hopefully they enjoy this as much as I do.”

The 24-year-old, second-year pro connected on all three field goals (34, 33, 30) and an extra point accounting for 10 of the Broncos points in Denver’s 24-10 win over the favored Carolina Panthers. Four of his five kickoffs were in the end zone with four touchbacks.

McManus connected on all 10 field goal attempts in the playoffs, nailing five in the Divisional round against the Pittsburgh.

The former Temple standout was asked if ever envisioned such a season when he was a ninth-grader on the North Penn Varsity.

“I did dream of that, yes,” McManus said. “But there’s a difference between a dream and reality. I’m just so honored to be on this team and be named world champs.”

The Broncos needed a consistent kicker with this team and McManus delivered.

Future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, 39, was not going to beat the Panthers with his arm and certainly not with this legs.

What Denver needed to do to upset Carolina was play great defense, get help from special teams, manufacture enough drives from Manning to get a touchdown or two, but at least field goals if their drives stalled, which was often against a stout Carolina defense.

It all went the Broncos way. Manning was just 13 of 23 for 141 yards, with an interception and no touchdown passes. He fumbled twice and losing one in the fourth quarter that set up a Carolina 39-yard field goal that made the score 16-10. The Broncos needed McManus and he came through.

McManus said everyone this team knows their role and sticks to it, even when one unit is not playing well.

“It’s a testament to our season all along,” McManus said. “We won a lot of games on defense and special teams. It’s a big family in this locker room. When one side of the ball is not performing as well as they’d want to, the other two phases want to step up and provide that security and put points on the board or swing momentum a little bit. That way we end up with ‘Ws’ at the end of the day.”
McManus said the Broncos defense and the rest of the special teams unit was inspiring.

“It was impressive,” McManus said. “Anytime you give (Defensive Coordinator) Wade Phillips and the people we have on defense two weeks to prepare for an offense, you’re going to get a pretty good game plan and a lot of success on defense. They showed that today, they played unbelievable. A lot of times [the Panthers] weren’t able to move the ball. (Punter) Britton (Colquitt) put the field for us; he had a lot of great punts. And our defense stepped up and got a bunch of turnovers, they definitely hoisted that trophy for us.”

“Brandon is where he is because of his hard work and dedication to the game.” —- Former Temple center Kyle Friend, who was a teammate of McManus his freshman year.

McManus was asked about the feelings a kicker has after a big miss. Carolina kicker Graham Gano missed a 44-yard field goal on the Panthers opening drive of the third quarter that would have made it a three-point game.

“Obviously you can always go back and scrutinize, I mean I’ve missed kicks in my career and this year,” McManus said. “But I wanted to come through for this team in a big moment. I was able to do that through the playoffs. I can’t thank my holder and snapper enough…for keeping me at ease out there doing their job to the best of their abilities. It allowed me to succeed and a lot of my success here in the playoffs goes to them as well.”

McManus will surly want to show off his hardware to Temple nation. The four-year starter finished his career as the Owl’s all-time leading scorer.

If there were scores of North Penn alumni watching Sunday, you can bet Temple players – past and present – were also rooting for McManus to play well.

Kyle Friend, a standout center over the last four years at Temple, was one of them. The NFL prospect talked about McManus’ rise to the top in the NFL and the year he spent with him as a teammate.

“Brandon is where he is because of his hard work and dedication to the game,” Friend said. “Even when he was at Temple and I was just a freshman, he opened up to me and helped me get acclimated to college football. He would always be yelling at me and pushing me even in drills like 9 on 7 making sure I was being physical and playing as well as I could as a young player new to the game. I can assure you he will have years of success to come.”

North Penn head football coach Dick Beck said last week that McManus had “the guts of a burglar.”

Kickers must have a unique personality and have no fear of breaking hearts on the opponent’s sideline to be successful.

“I still have to figure out what that means,” McManus laughed. “I guess it means I have the balls to do anything. One thing about today is that it was a day game, it wasn’t a night game. Sometimes when you play a night game you know the magnitude of the game: Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football…but it was sunny out there at the beginning of the game. That kind of relieved a little bit of the stress there, and once you get that first kick out of the way, it become just another football game and you want to go out there and do your job.”

It wasn’t the Eagles winning the Super Bowl last week, there is eternal hope for that here in the Delaware Valley. But for one day, the Philadelphia area had a reason to smile and be proud after a Super Bowl.