For the second week in a row, the future looks bleak for kicker Brett Maher. The Dallas Cowboys essentially put him on notice only days ahead of what wound up being a 31-24 loss to the Chicago Bears on “Thursday Night Football” by hosting tryouts for three kickers following another poor outing in Week 13.

They opted to stick with Maher for the time being following the workouts, however, and the decision helped cost them a much-needed victory at Soldier Field. Maher missed a critical 42-yard field goal with five minutes remaining in the first half that would’ve tied the score at 10-10 and given the team a chance to tie the contest late in the fourth quarter — assuming the maligned defense figured out how to get another rare stop against Mitchell Trubisky. 

Instead, still down by 10 points with time elapsing quickly, they were forced to mosey out Maher for what turned out to be a field goal he’d go on to make with 12 seconds left to play, which turned out to be wholly inconsequential.

“You have to make the kick,” head coach Jason Garrett said after the game of the missed 42-yarder. “We’ve had that instance the last couple weeks where you drive the ball and you are going to get yourself in a position to be competitive in the game, and we were not able to cash in on the drive with a field goal.”

Garrett himself is fighting for a job going forward, and Maher isn’t exactly helping either of their causes. 

Matters were made worse for both when a kickoff in the third quarter went out of bounds, setting the Bears up on the 40-yard line. Thanks to that additional error by Maher, Trubisky was gifted great field position that led to another Chicago touchdown.

“We were trying to kick the ball away from [Cordarrelle Patterson],” Garrett explained. “He’s a big-time player. [Maher] missed it a little bit left and it squirted out of bounds. So, obviously, not what we wanted in that situation.”

Obviously.

For his part, Maher left his poor showing in Chicago completely disconnected from the reality of what occurred, creating that much more concern regarding the situation.

“I felt like I did a good job staying in my lane this week,” he said. “I felt like I hit every ball pretty well tonight. I’ll put my head on the pillow tonight feeling good about what I did this week and moving forward.”

The Cowboys wholly disagree, which includes owner Jerry Jones offering scathing analysis of Maher’s performance on Monday to 105.3FM the Fan, but does that mean they’re finally ready to move on from him? 

“Obviously, we have to do a close evaluation of it,” Garrett said on Monday, in a less rosy tone than days prior. “…We brought three kickers in earlier in the week. We decided to give Brett an opportunity this week. It didn’t work out. 

“So we have to take a real close, hard look at that.”

With a mini-bye ahead of them to do just that, the chances of Maher being on the roster in Week 15 is slimmer than it’s ever been.