He played college football for the Duke Blue Devils and was selected by Chicago in the sixth round of the 1998 NFL draft.

He is considered one of the top long snappers in modern-day football, a title given to him by sports columnist Rick Gosselin[2] and special teams NFL agent Kevin Gold.

[3] The Patrick Mannelly Award, which was named after him, is presented to the top NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision senior long snapper.

[6] In 2006, kicker Robbie Gould claimed that Mannelly played a pivotal part of his productive season, and praised him in his Pro Bowl acceptance speech.

He was the first to count the rotations of the ball on a short snap so the holder never gets the laces, and he also developed cutting edge drills that are used by most special-teams coaches today.

"On September 2, 2014, Mannelly debuted with Chicago sports talk radio station 670 The Score as a co-host to Matt Spiegel.

Less than a year later, Mannelly left the show citing a lack of interest in covering sports besides football.