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FRISCO, Texas – The message was consistent. But the tone varied.

The Dallas Cowboys expressed no plans on Tuesday to drop kicker Brett Maher after he became the first player in NFL history to miss four extra point attempts in a game since the league began tracking statistics 91 years ago. .

But the degree of confidence the Cowboys expressed in Maher the day after a 31-14 NFC wild card win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was inconsistent.

There was team owner Jerry Jones, on his morning radio show, worried he was getting away too quickly from a player who completed 50 of 53 extra-point attempts in the regular season, as well as 29 of 32 field goals.

“But let’s take a look at this,” Jones said on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “It would be a really big setback to go into the rest of this tournament, the rest of the playoff with kick tremors.”

There was coach Mike McCarthy, who said Monday night from the podium at Raymond James Stadium that Maher was “disappointed but we need him”. On Tuesday, McCarthy further reiterated his belief in Maher’s process and the kicker’s ability to bounce back after the worst night of his career.

“I think the most important thing is making sure you have a good plan with Brett moving forward,” McCarthy said. “Let’s move on. So that’s, from now on, that’s the plan.

The qualifying phrase, “as of now,” seemed remarkable.

And then there was special teams coordinator John Fassel, who didn’t hesitate to express whether he wanted Maher to start for the Cowboys at kicker in Sunday’s divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers.

“Hell yes,” Fassel said. “If you ask me, sure.”

So what will the Cowboys do? And how do they explain the disastrous performance that hit the third highest scoring player in the NFL (137 total points) in the 2022 season?

How are the Cowboys planning to handle kicker Brett Maher after his record four missed extra points on Monday? (AP photo/Chris Carlson)

A weird night of kicking

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the Cowboys also believe that every extra point attempt is worth a story. This may interest you : Cowboys TE Dalton Schultz Talks Video Games, Fantasy Football ‘Death Threats’.

Coaches agreed that Maher’s worries on Monday night were psychological and situational, not physical. The 33-year-old player was uninjured. There was no wind or concerns about adverse weather Monday night in Tampa. And the kicking operation – the catch, the snap – was clean.

On his first miss, Maher “didn’t commit to a full swing,” Fassel said. “Almost like a lazy swing.” The ball flew so far to the right that it did not fall into the net behind the crossbar, but into the stadium’s stands. The Cowboys then had to continue their kicking operation with the second of their three designated kicks, or “K” balls, a ball Maher had far fewer reps and experience with.

To further distract from the second extra point attempt, the officials apparently signaled the Cowboys’ snapping operation before the second kick, saying they could not use a white-painted blade of grass from the painted field line to locate the ball. Whether that contributed to a second right-hand extra point attempt is up for debate, but what it isn’t is Maher apparently catching the ball with his toe rather than executing a clean hit.

The stands gobbled the ball up as well, leaving the Cowboys to settle for their last, least spent kick ball.

“We were down to our third and final ‘K’ ball that had not been tampered with,” said Fassel, explaining the nuances. “You only have so much time with the ‘K’ balls, so you spend most of your [pre-game] time on the first, what’s left on the second and hope to get a [kick] on the third. The first two were lost in the stands. Until our last ‘K’ ball and if we had missed that one we would have needed to use one of the Buccaneers’.

Maher overcorrected his third attempt. This time he went left.

And on the fourth failure, chaos was in Maher’s head. Yes, Fassel said, Maher had “barking” — a psychological phenomenon in sports that the Mayo Clinic defines as when athletes become “so anxious and self-centered — overthinking to the point of distraction — that their ability to execute a skill … is impaired. ”.

Maher finally got it right on his fifth attempt.

On Tuesday morning, in a meeting with Fassel, the kicker remained “disturbed”.

“A perfect storm for bad kicks,” Fassel said. “I believe in a warm hand and I believe in barking. Absolutely. Sometimes you’ll wonder how you’ll get into the barks, and sometimes you’ll wonder how you’ll get back into the hot hand. I think it’s [to] keep pushing the line and shooting.

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Fassel explains ‘best medicine’ for Maher

As of Tuesday night, the Cowboys did not plan to drastically change Maher’s practice week or game day operation, a person with knowledge of the plan confirmed to Yahoo Sports. To see also : The Cowboys can’t get out of their own way — and it doesn’t seem to matter. Yet. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly release details of the team’s game plan.

Maher was working at team headquarters on Tuesday, collating and reviewing the frustrating tape and preparing for his normally scheduled hash job on Thursday and situational kicks on Friday. A potential directional change was the most likely change, if any (coming right instead of left, for example), but a week of clean practice could eliminate even that skew.

The Cowboys’ next full practice, and so-called kicking time, was scheduled for Thursday.

Fassel praised Maher’s process as the best and most distinctive kicker routine he’s worked with in 18 seasons coaching NFL special teams with legs like Sebastian Janikowski and Greg Zuerlein. Each one, at some point, had the barking. Each one then continued kicking and passed them.

“This week is going to give him confidence, just getting back out there,” Fassel said. “He’s probably going to be mentally sore until he can sweat and kick again. There’s no remedy like being back on the practice field. I’m optimistic. A good, professional man who really cares… makes me optimistic about a good rebound. We all want it.

“To be honest with you, as a coach I kind of live for those moments – to play more like a psychologist than a coach, to go back into the meeting rooms and find a way to help these guys get back on their feet.”

Maher won’t have much time to spin. The Cowboys travel to San Francisco on Saturday after a shortened practice week, eager to defeat the 49ers and advance to a conference championship game for the first time in 27 years.

Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara will feature another turf challenge different from the home of the Cowboys. The Bay Area winds will likely further test Maher’s mettle.

The 49ers are 3.5 point favorites, per BetMGM. The Cowboys are going to need all the points they can get. Organization members hope Maher can deliver.

“At the end of the day, we all have a job to do,” McCarthy said. “He knows he has to put the ball on the post. And he’s been super productive and consistent for us.

“In this business, especially in this game, you learn from your experiences when things don’t go your way as opposed to success. So just like our entire football team [in a Week 18 loss] we came out of Washington and got punched in the jaw and I think we responded clearly.

“I think he definitely has that in him.”

Follow Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports on Twitter @JoriEpstein

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