Mike Vanderjagt?

Would The Danny actually do this?

Update 5:45 pm: Jason says Redskins are not interested. I'm not entirely convinced, since the team has fed him bad information before.

The Cowboys have cut Mike Vanderjagt, the prized free agent acquisition from Indianapolis signed this offseason to a 5.5 million dollar contract, with a 2.5 million dollar signing bonus. Thanks to this cut, the Cowboys will get hit with a dead-money penalty of 1.8 million dollars against the cap next season. Some choice Dallas media market quotes:

Dallas-Fort Worth Star Telegram:

Mike Vanderjagt discovered Monday that to keep a job, it's sometimes necessary to actually perform like "the most accurate kicker in NFL history" rather than just talk about it.

Same paper, different article:

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones called Mike Vanderjagt on Monday afternoon to inform him that he had been released. While Jones said he was sick about the decision, he told Vanderjagt that "some people in the organization lacked confidence in him."

"Some people" would be coach Bill Parcells, who clearly never trusted the most accurate kicker in NFL history.

So now that Vanderjagt

plans to put his home up for sale and cancel a charity event he had planned for December. He will return to his home in Canada and aims to be back in the NFL next season,

does anyone besides me and Wilbert Montgomery think this one has Dan Snyder written all over it? He's the bestest ever, high profile, been in clutch games and the current excuse for a kicker is just 5-for-10, including 1-for-3 between 30 and 39 yards. Vanderjagt is a guy that once made all 37 field goals in a season. I think that's wattage Dan Snyder is inexorably drawn to and I think Bob Novak better get back on his GMAT prep. The big question of course is whether Mike has lost his touch, if it's a mechanical thing he can fix or if it's all in his head.

And Canada? That makes three football people we know, Brian Hunter, Lee Gibbons and Vanderjagt, all from Canada. I thought you guys had the CFL. Keep your good beer and backbacon to yourselves you hosers.



Uncredited photo of Vanderjagt's potentially game-tying miss in the 2005 playoffs against the Steelers from teh internets.