Tag: Missed Field Goals

Zuerlein takes blame for Cowboys’ loss: ‘If I do my job, we win that game’

The Cowboys’ veteran kicker refused to let rust be an excuse after going just 3-of-5 in field goal tries and missing a PAT in the loss. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The Cowboys poured their guts out on the turf in Tampa and came within two points of beating the defending world champions. After such a loss, it’s hard for players to not scrutinize every move they made over the course of the contest, looking for something else they could have done that might have been the difference.

Greg Zuerlein didn’t have to look long. The kicker, entering his tenth year in the league, left a total of seven points on the field in a rough night where he went just 3-of-5 on field goal attempts and also missed a point after touchdown.

“I know we played well enough to win. If I do my job, we win that game,” Zuerlein said outside the visitors’ locker room after the 31-29 season-opening loss. “I feel bad for the guys in there that played their ass off, and I didn’t hold up my end of the deal. A team that’s that good, returning every player from the Super Bowl victory, and we’re right there. I just have to do my job.”

Particularly concerning to the 2017 All-Pro was his first miss, a seemingly easy 31-yarder that sailed very wide left.

“Obviously, missing something [that’s] such an easy kick- you don’t even really practice them; it’s just automatic,” he explained. “When you miss something like that, you analyze it for about two minutes, figure out what you did wrong, and then you’ve got to move on. It does you no good dwelling on it.”

Two minutes of analysis is all Zuerlein had. The defense regained possession on the Bucs’ next play, recovering a fumble and setting up Dak Prescott and Co. with a short field and an eventual touchdown five snaps later. But Zuerlein then banged the extra-point attempt off the left upright.

The 33-year-old said that during a game, he may make small adjustments to his mechanics based on what he thinks he did wrong on an earlier miss, but there’s a danger in overthinking or trying to change too much all at once.

“I think the approach is always the same, whether you make it or miss it,” Zuerlein said. “You don’t just throw things straight out the window. You figure out what you did wrong, and you can make a slight tweak. But you’re not going to wholesale change everything. You’ve just got to keep swinging.”

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy subscribed to the same theory, sending Zuerlein out to boot a 35-yard field goal on the team’s next series, and then to try a 60-yarder just before halftime. McCarthy admitted that he wanted to provide a confidence boost to his kicker who’s coming off spring back surgery and missed most of training camp.

“Obviously, you’d like to see him make those kicks,” McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “Frankly, it’s part of the reason I went for the 60-yarder. I have great faith and confidence in him. We need him; he made a clutch, clutch kick there at the end to give us the lead before the two-minute drive of Tampa. You get in a game like that, you need all the points you can get.”

True, Zuerlein had better rhythm after the intermission, sinking field goals from 21 and 48 yards, the latter giving Dallas the lead with under 84 seconds to play.

But that was more than enough time for Tom Brady to work with, and he drove Tampa Bay to inside the Cowboys’ 20. Zuerlein’s earlier missed kicks had left just a slim margin; they ended up allowing Buccaneers kicker Ryan Succop to win the game with a 36-yard field goal of his own.

Zuerlein had not missed a field goal attempt of under 40 yards since 2019 and had missed just two from that range in the last five years. And while his physical rehab this summer kept him out of all but one preseason game (and forced the team to try both a punter and a CFL All-Star at kicker during camp), the man they call “Greg the Leg” wouldn’t chalk up his Week 1 misses to rust.

“No excuses. If I’m out there, I should make the kicks.”

Whether or not Zuerlein should, in fact, be the one out there is sure to be a question asked a lot this week in Cowboys Nation.

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McCarthy on Cowboys’ total team ineffectiveness: ‘We’re kicking field goal attempts, and they score touchdowns’

The Dallas coach and players were unhappy about the team’s missed field goals and overall lack of scoring against Baltimore on Tuesday.

The Cowboys got trounced by 17 points. Field goals were not the difference. But having to repeatedly settle for three-point tries instead of putting the ball in the end zone assuredly put Dallas in a hole that they never climbed out of.

Missing three of those tries may have also put kicker Greg Zuerlein in a hole with his teammates and coaching staff.

“The issue,” as head coach Mike McCarthy explained in his postgame press conference, “we’re kicking field goals- or attempting to kick field goals- and they were scoring touchdowns.”

Yikes.

With one pointed zinger, McCarthy managed to trash his anemic offense, insult his porous defense, and put his $2.5-million-dollar kicker on notice.

Zuerlein, a nine-year veteran with a career make percentage of over 82%, found himself in a serious slump in Baltimore on Tuesday night. Despite entering the game having connected on eight straight field goals, the 2017 Pro Bowler missed from 40, 53, and 52 yards against the Ravens on Tuesday.

It marked the first time Zuerlein has missed multiple field goals in a game since 2016, and it was the first time he’s missed three in a game since his rookie season.

The Ravens’ Justin Tucker also had a miss on the night. According to him, it’s become a not-uncommon problem in his home stadium in recent years.

The December air was chilly, with a noticeable wind coming in off the Inner Harbor. But Zuerlein couldn’t blame his performance on the weather or the stadium.

“I wouldn’t say it was anything, at all,” the kicker said, per the Cowboys team website. “I think the conditions were fine, even if there was wind. I’m good enough to make the kicks, I just didn’t do it.”

Kickers are often held at somewhat of a distance from the rest of the team, viewed as a separate entity. Even though they work hand in hand, so to speak, with the offense, every-down players are often hesitant to comment on the specialist’s job.

But Zuerlein’s teammates couldn’t help but notice the misses that left them empty-handed after three of their ten drives during the game.

“They’re definitely crucial,” wide receiver Michael Gallup said afterward of the missed kicks, “but we’re always thinking six and seven. We’re always thinking those touchdown plays. We’re not trying to settle for a field goal. It’s great to get field goals, but we want touchdowns. We want to score big.”

Scoring big has been a rare occurrence for Dallas in 2020. The team ranks in the bottom ten leaguewide in total scoring, averaging just over 22 points per game. They’ve averaged just 15 per game over their past seven outings; the only time they topped 20 in that span resulted in their lone win since mid-October.

Zuerlein may have blown his opportunities Tuesday, but the offense as a whole isn’t doing their job, either.

They had chances in Baltimore. The Cowboys ran 23 more plays than the Ravens, had ten more first downs, nearly matched them in total yardage, won the time of possession battle, and had the ball inside Ravens territory on all but two of their offensive drives.

“We’re getting good field position, we’re getting the ball on their side of the 50,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told the media after the game. “We’ve got to go score touchdowns. That’s kind of been the story this year.”

“We had the ball forever,” Gallup agreed. “We were moving the ball. We were running it, we were throwing it, we just didn’t get paydirt. That’s the biggest thing.”

“We kept getting stalled, kind of, right before the red zone,” noted quarterback Andy Dalton. “We made it tougher on the kicks. We’ve got to find a way to convert first downs on those situations, keep drives alive, and get down there and score touchdowns.”

Zuerlein’s last two misses- from 53 and 52- perhaps shouldn’t have come as a shock. The normally-dependable kicker nicknamed “Greg the Leg” has converted just one of his six attempts from beyond 50 yards this season.

Kickers, on the whole, though, are improving dramatically from long-range. Field goals of 50-plus yards were once a true novelty in the NFL. In 1960, for example, just five were made across the entire league that season. Through the first 13 weeks of this season, 88 of them have been made at a rate of nearly two out of every three attempts.

Once considered a highlight-reel sniper shot, a 50-plus-yard field goal is now a 65.6% proposition.

But it’s Zuerlein’s first miss from Tuesday night that will really stick in the craw of Cowboys fans. After an eleven-play drive put them in the red zone, Dallas lined up for a 35-yard field goal. Zuerlein had a 91.7% career make percentage from 30 to 39 yards. He connected.

But a terrible bit of pre-snap clock management brought a delay of game penalty. The Cowboys were moved back five yards to try again. Zuerlein’s make percentage from 40 to 49 yards was just 79.7%, but he’d been perfect from that range on the year up to that moment.

The ensuing kick sailed wide right. And with it seemed to go much of the Cowboys’ momentum.

“We missed the field goal,” McCarthy said. “Those are the kind of mistakes you can’t make in a game like this. We needed points there. We had some opportunities for points that did not come out. At the end of the day, we’re kicking field goal attempts, and they score touchdowns.”

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