Cowboys have clearly given up on a playoff failure

May 25, 2023 ndowd

The Cowboys appear to be done with kicker Brett Maher after Maher’s disastrous playoff performance last season.

What do you get when you cross an NFL kicker with the yips in the most important stretch of the year? A free agent. Brett Maher was the Dallas Cowboys’ straight-shooting stud during the regular season, but no one can forget his performance in the 2022 playoffs.

Literally, no one will forget it. It’s in the history books now.

In 2022, Maher went 29-of-32 on field goal attempts and 50-of-53 on extra point attempts in 17 games in the regular season.

Then, in the Wild Card win over the Buccaneers, Maher missed a record-setting four extra points. Maher finally connected on his fifth extra-point try, and thankfully, the Cowboys had already clinched the win by then. In the next matchup against the 49ers, Maher made two field goals but missed yet another extra point.

Those missed extra points were grounds for the Cowboys to let Maher test free agency this offseason, and an AFC West team just brought him in for a tryout.

I completely missed that Denver is working out Brett Maher after releasing McManus.

That really hammers it home. There might be 2-3 kickers playing at an elevated level in any given year. Everyone else is basically the same guy looking for a situation that clicks.

— David Helman (@davidhelman_) May 23, 2023

Cowboys’ Brett Maher is damaged goods but could get picked up by Broncos

The Denver Broncos released kicker Brandon McManus earlier this week and have been on the prowl for a more reliable leg.

On Tuesday, the Broncos reportedly hosted Maher for a workout and also brought in Elliott Fry and Parker White.

Maher posted more respectable numbers than McManus did over the course of the 2022 regular season, so in some ways signing Maher would be an upgrade for Denver.

On the other hand, McManus didn’t go through a terrible case of the yips like Maher and could in turn be considered a worthy pick-up for Dallas.

Most NFL kickers are just playing a giant game of musical chairs at this point, and teams’ switcheroos at the kicker position could become an ongoing trend in the league. Except for Justin Tucker, Evan McPherson, and maybe a few others, a kicker’s starting spot is constantly in jeopardy.

Maher’s missed extra-point attempts in the playoffs buried his Cowboys career, but with a little luck, he may get a shot at redemption elsewhere.

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