After a training camp in which, it seemed from all reports, no one wanted the job of place kicker, rookie Dan Bailey has performed about as well in four games this season as anyone could have reasonably expected--maybe better.
Bailey won the job out of training camp, and has started his NFL career by making 12 of his 13 field goal attempts so far, and 11 straight, for a 92.3 success rate. He hasn’t missed since week two, the game against San Francisco, after which he redeemed himself by going on to nail the game-winner in overtime.
Of course, Dallas opted to keep two kickers around, Bailey for the place kicking work and David Buehler for kickoffs--a role he filled in his rookie season. But with Buehler out with a groin injury in the past two weeks, we’ve found out Bailey is plenty capable of kicking off, too.
But the undrafted rookie remains humble, and believes he has plenty of room for improvement, at least as far as kickoffs go.
"I did OK. I can definitely do [better]," Bailey said recently, per ESPN Dallas. "There are areas I can improve in, just execute different game plans that we have and get more consistent on my depth and direction and stuff like that. I think last game was an improvement from the game before, but there's still a lot of improvement from the game before."
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