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Cowboys cut kicker Brett Maher right after he spent time with sick kids at hospital

There are a lot of things wrong with the Dallas Cowboys, but the easiest one to fix was at kicker.

Brett Maher, who leads the NFL with 10 missed field goals, was cut on Monday. The Cowboys signed Kai Forbath to take his place, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

Forbath might not be the long-term answer, but after Maher missed a short field goal and hit a kickoff out of bounds in an ugly loss to the Chicago Bears last week, it was clear that the Cowboys needed a change.

The NFL is a cold business, and the way Maher was cut might have been the coldest way of all.

Dallas Cowboys place kicker Brett Maher (2) was released on Monday. (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Dallas Cowboys place kicker Brett Maher (2) was released on Monday. (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Brett Maher was doing community service before he was cut

The Cowboys played last Thursday and Maher wasn’t cut over the weekend. On Monday he went about his business, visiting sick kids in the hospital with some of his teammates, according to Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News.

That’s life in professional football. It’s a bottom-line business and Maher wasn’t getting the job done. The timing of the transaction was cruel and unfortunate.

Kai Forbath has experience

Forbath has kicked in one game this season, for the New England Patriots. He missed an extra point.

The Cowboys will be Forbath’s sixth NFL team. He spent time with the Redskins, Jaguars, Saints, Vikings and the one game with the Patriots. He has hit 85.8 percent of his field-goal attempts through his career, and the Cowboys would take that for the rest of the season.

Maher’s struggles weren’t the reason the Cowboys have slipped this season, but they weren’t helping either. Dallas needed to move on, even if the timing wasn’t great.

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

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