'The Rope Is Here': Cowboys Coach Mike McCarthy Calls Out His 2 Struggling Kickers

Maybe a positive answer will emerge between now and Denver. Maybe one will emerge from that game, when the lights go on.

"The rope is here,'' Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said in addressing his kicker problem.

And has he just left it there, for us to finish the sentence, we might've said ...

"And the careers of both Jonathan Garibay and Lirim Hajrullahu are ready for a noose.''

But no. McCarthy took a more positive bent, closing with, "Someone has to grab it.”

Yes, that would be nice. But neither of the two kickers currently on the roster have impressed on a consistent basis. (See practice notebook here.) The former CFL star Hajrullahu, we might say, has been less bad than the Texas Tech UDFA rookie Garibay, but that's about as complimentary as we're going to be.

“These two are competing for a job, McCarthy said. "At some point they got to start getting comfortable and making kicks more consistently. That is just stating the facts. 

"At the end of the day, the rope is here. Someone has to grab it.”

There is another choice, of course - and it could lead to the much-feared "revolving door'' at the position, with Dallas spending way too long ... maybe all season ... trying to unearth an answer. For now, McCarthy said the two players will continue kicking in every practice this week, and he suggested that both will continue to do so next week through the first preseason game, at Denver.

Maybe a positive answer will emerge between now and then. Maybe one will emerge from that game, when the lights go on.

Or maybe the Cowboys are simply giving these two enough rope to ... you know.

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