Phil Dawson
It’s usually hard to be nit-picky about one missed field goal. That was what we thought at the beginning of the 2016 season as well.
With one simple missed field goal by Dawson on Sunday, it brought all of the special teams issues the team had last season right back. Fair or not to Dawson, that’s where we are at.
One of the biggest areas needing improvement in the offseason, started off the 2017 campaign the same way. Three games last season were decided by missed field goals.
Dawson missed his 32-yard field goal in the second quarter of Sunday’s game. This was after a made field goal was taken off the board due to a Lions penalty and the Cardinals kept the ball with a first down.
After the offense stalled, Dawson came in and clanked one off the goal post. All a sudden, it was 2016 again.
I suspect we will see a lot of great kicks from Dawson over the course of the season. Fans though need to see it now. The Cardinals paid a lot of attention trying to improve here. Now those players, like Dawson, need to prove the Cardinals made a good decision by bringing him in.