Monday morning before his team trounced Tampa Bay, 31-14, in the NFL wild-card playoff game, Dallas kicker Brett Maher heard his alarm clock go off two hours late, hit his non-kicking toe on a Tampa Bay Hilton Garden Inn chair, got a past-due bill notice in his email, then spilled all the coffee when he opened the door on his knee.
But he really started living a sad country song once he got to the stadium. Once his team scored a touchdown.
Yay!
And once he missed the extra point.
Booo!!!
Then his team scored another touchdown.
And he missed the extra point.
Then his team scored another touchdown.
And he missed the extra point.
Then his team scored another touchdown.
And he missed the extra point.
Four in a row. For a professional kicker.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter — although don’t try to tell that to a guy who bet the over. (More on that in a minute.) But it mattered to Maher, who finally made one on his fifth try after the Cowboys’ final TD.
It mattered to everyone watching, because you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy. If anyone ever needed a hug …
And it mattered to kickers, who are people too, at least sort of.
“It was tough to watch,” said Jonathan Barnes, a former All-Louisiana place kicker for Louisiana Tech from 2014-17, now living and working in Ruston, where he and his wife are expecting a little kicker or cheerleader come summertime. He was almost as nervous watching Maher try to kick Monday night as he will be when wife Lauren goes into labor.
It’s a kicking brotherhood kind of thing. They really can’t help it.
“You know when he’s going out there the second time, he’s still thinking about the first time,” said Barnes, who came to Tech from Baton Rouge and is pursuing a graduate degree while he works as a realtor. “And when he’s going out there the third time, he’s still thinking about the second time …”
Since the ball was moved from the two-yard-line to the 15 in 2015, an NFL extra point has been from 33 yards: 15 yards plus 10 yards of end zone plus eight yards to hike, place and kick.
In college, it’s hiked from the two (old NFL rules), making the kick about 20 yards. Barnes was 43-of-46 as a senior, and missed just once in 137 times as a sophomore and junior.
“We do miss a kick,” Barnes said, laughing, “every now and then.”
It’s hard. And tricky.
Consider that Maher has kicked a pair of 62-yard field goals. He has the franchise record with a 63-yarder. But four times Monday, dead on, he missed four straight kicks that NFL kickers make more than 94 percent of the time.
“Ninety percent of kicking is those few inches between your ears,” Barnes said. “It’s not an ability thing with this guy; he’s got all the ability in the world. Just all of a sudden, he got out of that groove — and trying to find it again, right then, can be tough.”
The Cowboys signed another kicker this week and might activate him for the division round when Dallas (13-5) plays at San Francisco (14-4) Sunday at 5:30.
Wish I could activate somebody to cover for me. I am in a harmless but meaningful 28-person family football league. We pick against the spread and no money changes hands but feelings are often hurt. Like mine, when I went 0-for-6 last weekend.
0-for-6. Two misses worse than Maher’s historic all-time league-worst four whiffs.
You can try hard for a long time and not go 0-for-6. I’ll tell you about it sometime, in hopes maybe I can help some poor, misguided soul.
Oh, and just because favored Dallas won and easily covered the 2.5-points spread, don’t think Maher’s missed kicks “didn’t matter.” The “total,” or the over-under, the number of points both teams were predicted to score, was 45.5. They scored 31 + 14, so 45 total. That means if you bet the “under,” you were the winner because the Cowboys professional kicker missed four extra points. FOUR! If he makes just one, the “over” wins.
Except he didn’t. So if you bet the over, what you wanted to kick … was Maher.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
