Nebraska Football: Brett Maher the butt of many jokes after rough night

Dallas Cowboys place kicker Brett Maher (19) warms up (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)
Dallas Cowboys place kicker Brett Maher (19) warms up (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

By all accounts, former Nebraska football great Brett Maher has had a great season for the Dallas Cowboys. However, on Monday night, things took a turn. It appears the former Husker kicker has developed a case of the yips.

Those yips started last week for the ex-Nebraska football kicker who missed an extra point in the Cowboys final regular season game. He then proceeded to miss his first four extra point kicks in Dallas’ playoff game against the Tampa Bay Bucs.

It is, as it turns out, it was the first time an NFL kicker has missed four straight extra points in a playoff game.

With the contest between the Cowboys and Bucs being the only game in town, more than a few people got to see Maher’s struggles and quite a few of them had thoughts on what it was they were watching.

It needs to be pointed out that Brett Maher is not a bad kicker. Has never been a bad kicker. That’s why he’s played five seasons in the NFL.

For the Nebraska football team, he was about as automatic as a kicker can be. In the two years when he held the starting job for the Huskers, he missed one (1!!) extra point. In 103 attempts.

It’s not like going to the NFL is what started the yips either. Entering tonight, Maher has never missed four extra points in a season. In fact, the most he’s ever missed in one season was this year, when he missed three.

In his first two years with the Cowboys, he was very similar to his Nebraska football career. He missed one extra point in 99 attempts. That’s why Monday night was so bizarre.

Maher did hit his final kick of the night. He now has something he can build on, whatever his struggles were tied to. The Cowboys also won the game so he won’t be a Scott Norwood type who will spend the rest of his career being blamed for the loss.

Nonetheless, the former Nebraska football great is going to have to live Monday’s game down for a while.