Cowboys midseason stock report: Jalen Tolbert missing in action after 8 games

Stock Moderately Up: Brett Maher, Kicker

This guy looks like a completely different person.

When Dallas decided to give up on rookie Jonathan Garibay and brought back Brett Maher, it felt as though the kicking game would be a disaster in 2022. That hasn’t been the case though as Maher has hit on 15-of-17 attempts as well as 18-of-19 extra points. Both of his missed field goals have been not only from more than 50-yards out, but they were more than 59-yards.

Overall, he’s 4-of-6 from beyond 50, including a game-winner over the Bengals. Inside of that, he’s a perfect 11-for-11.

His long on the season is 54-yards, so he’s not drilling them from 60-plus as he did during his first tenure, but we’ll take consistency inside of that range any day over the occasional jaw-dropping make.

Stock Moderately Down: DeMarcus Lawrence, EDGE

For the past two seasons, Pro Football Focus has been very high on DeMarcus Lawrence as he’s finished as the No. 4 edge rusher in the league in each of those campaigns. There will be those who scout based on the stat box alone and say he was bad due to his lack of quarterback sacks, but he was still generating pressures and shut down the run game on his side.

This season, things haven’t been as good. PFF currently has him at No. 38 for defensive ends and has dinged his run defense quite a bit. Of course, the analytical site isn’t perfect but it was easy to see Lawrence take a couple of bad angles in run defense against the Bears, which led to huge gains.

Lawrence is still a good player and has four sacks on the season — three against the Falcons — but he’s not dominating the way we’re used to seeing, which is why his stock has taken a hit.