It has been an up and down season for Dallas Cowboys kicker Brett Maher. Through 12 games he has missed at least one field goal in seven of them. Maher struggled in front of the whole world on Thanksgiving Day against the Buffalo Bills and as a result the Cowboys decided to work out three players on Sunday after practice (Sunday is like a Wednesday to the Cowboys who are going from one Thursday game to another).
Jason Garrett was firm in his Sunday press conference that just because the Cowboys were working out kickers didn’t mean that they would be signing one. It appears as if that was indeed the case as according to ESPN’s Todd Archer it doesn’t seem as if Dallas is going to be bringing on a new kicker.
At this time, it appears as if the Cowboys are not going to sign any of the kickers who worked out Sunday, but Brett Maher was not paying attention to the potential roster switch. “Focus on what I can do to make my next kick,” Maher said. He has missed nine attempts this season, including two on Thanksgiving, that he has put on technical issues at times. “It just goes to show how fine the line is and this league is tough,” Maher said. “What I do is tough and being on the screws at all times.”
Since the beginning of his career with the Cowboys the circumstances have been difficult for Brett Maher. He is replacing a franchise legend at the position in Dan Bailey so the bar was always going to be ridiculously high, life in the NFL can be tough sometimes.
The NFL is difficult but as they say, it is ultimately a business. This seemed to come to the forefront of L.P. Ladouceur’s mind when he was asked about the team working out kickers on Sunday. It was understandably awkward for him.
LP Ladouceur on working with tryout kickers: It sucks, it puts me and Chris (Jones) in kinda a bad spot. Brett is our guy. He's been our friend for the past two years and we played games with him and all of a sudden, I'm supposed to work with these guys and tell Brett I'm sorry?
— Calvin Watkins (@calvinwatkins) December 1, 2019
While it’s understandable for Ladouceur to feel one way, ultimately that shouldn’t matter with what the team is going to do. The goal is to have the best possible team so that they can win games. Whatever they have to do in order to do that needs to be done.