Cowboys stock up stock down after Week 5: Tony Pollard climbs

Stock up: Brett Maher, K

When the Cowboys brought back Brett Maher, there was a collective groan across the fan base. But five weeks into the season, it’s safe to say Maher is the best player to ever replace a long-term starter in Dallas, struggle for two seasons, sit out a whole year, play well for New Orleans, and then return to the Cowboys.

Sure, he’s the only player that had all that happen, but the truth is, he’s been Mr. Reliable during his second stint with the ‘Boys. Maher is 13-of-14 on field goals with his only miss coming from well beyond 50 yards. He’s also 6-of-7 on extra points thus far.

Maher has been calm and collected, even drilling a game-winner over the Bengals in Week 2. As long as he keeps this up, he might be able to stick around for a while this time.

Stock down: Connor McGovern, LG, and Tyler Smith, LT

With Jason Peters suffering an injury, Dallas had to turn back to Connor McGovern. His performance against the Rams wasn’t terrible but the best that can be said is he’s better than Matt Farniok, which isn’t much.

As for Tyler Smith, he had been playing well but Los Angeles moved Aaron Donald to the defensive end spot to take advantage of the rookie. He did just that as he drew a couple of flags on Smith and got two sacks. It’s hard to fault a rookie for not doing well against a 3x DPOY, but he still has some work to do.