DALLAS — Brett Maher dealt with a case of the yips on Monday.
The Dallas Cowboys' kicker missed his first four extra-point attempts in the team's wildcard playoff matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
(Mercifully, he made his fifth.)
In the first half of the game alone, he shanked his first two attempts to the right of the uprights. Then, he pulled his third attempt to the left. And finally, in the third quarter, he doinked his fourth XP kick off the top of right upright.
According to StatMuse, nine other kickers in NFL history can claim missing three PATS in a game.
Maher is the first to miss four.
Thing is, he also missed his sole PAT attempt in the Cowboys' Week 18 matchup against the Washington Commanders -- just one of many lackluster attributes in a game filled with them.
That means he missed five consecutive extra point attempts over a two-week span.
Heading into tonight's game, Maher had only missed six extra point kicks in 134 attempts throughout his four-year career. And that figure, it's worth noting, includes the miss in Washington. Meaning? He missed as many XP attempts in his last two games (5) as he had in his career before Week 18.
Yeesh.
Maher is -- as you might expect -- on the receiving end of some choice Twitter roasts for his misses.
Here's just one example:
"He missed again" was even a trending term on the social media platform by the third quarter.
At the Cowboys' official watch party outside of AT&T Stadium in Arlington -- which claimed a total of 10,101 attendees -- fans couldn't help but groan out their frustrations at his fourth miss of the game:
The good news for Maher, we suppose, is that his poor performance did not prove a problem for the Cowboys, whose offense burst out the gates to a robust early lead over Tom Brady and the Bucs despite his miscues.
And, in the end, the Cowboys won the game 31-14.
Plus, if nothing else, Maher still has his team behind him. In his press conference after the game, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said the team will continue to move forward in the playoffs with Maher as its kicker, and that the roster wouldn't see any rash changes made due to his recent struggles.
Well, not before the Divisional Round of the playoffs, anyway.