The Dallas Cowboys’ ”college kicker” situation is a great way to lose games

Among the many position battles on going with the Dallas Cowboys the most compelling is Prayer versus Tell Me Your Name Again?

That’s not the names of the Dallas Cowboys kickers, but both fit.

The list of concerns for the Dallas Cowboys runs as deep as the Marianas Trench, a place where the team may have to look to find another potential kicker.

You want to find a great way to lose five games a season, entrust the kicker you can’t trust.

There are few things more frustrating for a football fan, coach, GM, owner, media member or player than watching the kicker that turns an extra point attempt into a Jordan Peele movie.

The Dallas Cowboys are an NFL team with a “college kickers” crisis.

Ever since Dan Bailey hurt his leg in 2017, they do what they always do: Throw a sack full of lawn darts into the sky and hope one lands close to the target.

As of Aug. 16, 2022, they are not close to the target.

Maybe it’s time to see if there’s some accuracy in Jerry Jones’ 79-year-old right leg. He did play college football.

Maybe they can bring back former safety Jeff Heath. He kicked some extra points for the team in 2017, and kicked off, too.

Might be time to check in on Eddie Murray. Place a call to Bill Parcells’ good buddy, Mike Vanderjagt.

The situation is not good.

Since 2017, the Cowboys have used seven kickers and there is a decent chance they will be on No. 8 during the season.

Bailey, Mike Nugent, Jeff Heath, Brett Maher, Kai Forbath, Greg Zuerlein and Lirim Hajrullahu have all kicked for the Cowboys in the last five years.

Special teams coach John “Bones” Fassel brought Zuerlein to the Cowboys, only to have Greg “The Leg” kick his way out of town.

The Cowboys gave up on Zuerlein in the offseason.

The team signed former Texas Tech kicker Jonathan Garibay to a rookie free agent contract. He was so not good in training camp, missing from all distances, the team dumped him before they played a game.

Adding a guy like Lirim Hajrullahu makes sense; historically, NFL teams that sign foreign kickers whose names that can neither be spelled nor pronounced has worked.

Alas, it does not look like Mr. Hajrullahu is the next Jan Stenerud. It looks more like Lirim Hajrullahu is the next Lirim Hajrullahu.

Now they have brought back Maher.

The Cowboys broke up with Maher for a reason; he made 66.7 percent of his field goals for the team in 2019, including 1-of-5 on distances between 40 to 49 yards.

Maybe he’s learned from all of those misses. Last season in New Orleans, he was pretty good; he made 16 of 18 attempts.

What the Cowboys are doing with this position is not that much different than the other 31 teams. It’s an impossible position to evaluate, or “nail.”

Current Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker told 60 Minutes of his position, “(Kicking) is 90 percent mental, and the last 10 percent is mental.”

Kickers are head cases. Most are sturdy as a Styrofoam cup.

Their professional existence often depends on three plays every Sunday, and if they’re an inch off they’re done.

Tucker is the best kicker in the NFL, whose resume will one day merit consideration in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Ravens signed him as an undrafted rookie free agent, and it’s worked.

Former New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, a future Hall of Famer, wasn’t drafted.

The last time the Cowboys spent a draft pick on a kicker was USC’s David Buehler in 2009; he was a fifth round pick who was a tremendous athlete and he could kick a ball to Mars but he could miss the Gulf of Mexico standing on the beach in Galveston.

So he didn’t last.

Dan Bailey was an undrafted signee who solved a lot of problems, and repeatedly bailed out Jason Garrett.

A good kicker can do that.

Now the team is back in kicking hell, banking on either Prayer or Tell Me Your Name Again? to solve their “college kicker” crisis.