Following a particularly poor performance in the Cowboys’ wild-card round victory over the Buccaneers, Dallas placekicker Brett Maher received votes of confidence from two of the team’s most outspoken leaders on offense: quarterback Dak Prescott and running back Ezekiel Elliott.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, three days before the divisional round matchup against the 49ers, Prescott and Elliott again addressed Maher’s showing on Monday, when the 27-year-old missed four consecutive extra-point attempts. Though the shaky outing wasn’t what the Cowboys wanted to see so late in the year, Maher’s teammates continued to express their belief in his abilities moving forward.
“We’ve got trust in him,” Elliott said Thursday, per Jori Epstein of Yahoo! Sports. “We’ve got faith in him. That’s our brother and we’re not going to turn our back on him. Last week we ain’t really need him. But this week we probably will.”
Elliott added with a laugh: “So get that s— together.”
Maher made 50 of his 53 PATs (94.3%) during the regular season, in addition to 29-of-32 field goals (90.6%). He also managed to drill his fifth and final PAT in Monday’s 31–14 win, appearing to remedy his case of the yips that plagued him for most of the evening.
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“I’m a ‘Money’ Maher fan. Things like that happen,” Prescott said Thursday, while also making clear he wouldn’t change his style of play in light of Maher’s latest outing. “I haven’t lost any confidence, nor am I going to force my game or do anything outside my box because of uncharacteristic misses by him.
“I think he’ll get back to himself this week as he has done here at practice, and I trust that guy all the way through. As I said: Nobody’s more resilient.”
Though the Cowboys players backed Maher during the game and in practice this week, Jerry Jones and the team’s front office prepared a backup option on the off-chance that things don’t improve in the coming days. Dallas signed kicker Tristan Vizcaino to its practice squad on Wednesday after Maher became the first NFL player since 1932 history to miss four PATs in a single game.
The Cowboys still have a few days to make an official decision on which player will handle the place-kicking responsibilities when they take on the 49ers in the divisional round on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET.
