Year after year the Dallas Cowboys try to do their best to create competition at every position, especially since Jason Garrett has taken over as head coach. Creating competition throughout the roster has actually become one of his coaching mantras, which is no surprise coming from a former backup quarterback. Believe it or not, this year could be more competitive than in years past.
The Dallas Cowboys current roster is pretty deep from top to bottom. It’s one of the more impressive groups of talent they’ve been able to put together in recent memory, which is why training camp and preseason games could be much more competitive. One position though that doesn’t typically receive a lot of competition is in the kicking game, whether it is at punter or kicker. That might not be the case this year if you believe Mickey Spagnolo, a columnist with the Dallas Cowboys.
Spagnolo suggests we could have another Brett Maher situation on our hands. You know, a “camp leg” brought in to provide some modest competition, but not really expected to be a serious contender. The new Maher this year could be Kasey Redfern, who is currently listed as a punter on the Dallas Cowboys roster.
Here’s what Spagnolo recently had to say about Kasey Redfern after the most recent practice open to the media:
“Always good to have some semblance of competition this time of year, and one reason why the Cowboys signed Kasey Redfern, listed as a punter. But Wednesday he showed he is a place-kicker, too. During special team drills, he drilled all five of his field-goal attempts and then, with the first and second teams participating in play-it-out sessions, the offense needing at least a field goal to tie the score in the final 1:24, the first-year kicker with two seconds left made his 38-yard attempt and then on a fourth-and-1 with no timeouts left with the second offense, nailed a 53-yarder. Guess we should pay attention since this time last year we basically ignored backup kicker Brett Maher, only for him to win the job over Dan Bailey”.
I don’t know about you, but I’m really intrigued by what Spagnolo said about Redfern. That’s because I really wanted to see the Dallas Cowboys bring in some serious competition to compete with both Chris Jones and Brett Maher this offseason. Neither player had a great 2018 season, which is why I was hoping for a kicking competition. Maybe, just maybe, Kasey Redfern is the answer.
So far in Redfern’s career he’s been mostly a journeyman punter. He spent time on several different rosters after finishing his career at Wofford College, where he handled both punting and kicking duties. He was even involved in a trade between the Carolina Panthers and Cleveland Browns. The Panthers traded Redfern and a 2018 fourth-round pick to the Browns for Punter Andy Lee and a 2017 seventh-round pick.
It wasn’t until he landed with the Detroit Lions that it looked like his career was finally starting to take off. He was named the starter after Sam Martin sustained an injury that would sideline him for several weeks, but unfortunately Redfern had a run of bad luck himself. He sustained a serious knee injury in the season opener, tearing his ACL, MCL, and a partially torn patellar tendon.
Now with the Dallas Cowboys, Kasey Redfern is hoping he has literally landed on his feet with the chance to finally show the NFL what he can do when given the opportunity. There’s no doubt it’ll be an uphill battle for him to outperform Chris Jones or Brett Maher, but he might just be somebody that Cowboys Nation wants to keep an eye on anyways.
