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Cowboys' safety takes over kicking duties after injury

There are few moments more gloriously ridiculous in baseball than when a position player comes in and pitches. Sometimes he’ll drill the batter, and sometimes the batter will tattoo the poor overmatched pitcher’s not-so-fast fastball into the seats. You don’t get much of a chance to see position switches like that in football aside from the occasional Fat Guy Touchdown or Dontari Poe TD pass, but when it happens, it’s a thing of beauty.

Regular Dallas Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey left Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers, a 40-10 blowout, with a groin injury. Much like your fantasy team, the Cowboys apparently carried only one viable kicker, so that meant strong safety Jeff Heath got pressed into emergency kicking duty.

He doinked an extra point kick off the upright for his first offensive points as an NFL player after the Cowboys’ Ezekiel Elliott took a pass and ran 72 yards for the touchdown. (Heath had a 50-yard fumble return for a touchdown back in 2013.)

After making that first PAT attempt, Heath missed one in the third quarter. He was a perfect 1-for-1 in the fourth quarter.

Heath cuts a bit of a strange figure kicking off, but if nothing else, the rest of the kicking team can take comfort in the fact that their new kicker will have no problem laying out a returner that gets loose.

Apparently Heath has some kicking skill in the blood. If you believe Wikipedia, he was chosen as the Lake Orion (Michigan) High School Big Play Player of the Year when he kicked a playoff game-winning field goal. There’s no record of him kicking since high school until the moment he put boot to leather in an NFL game.

More weird NFL, please.

Jeff Heath kicks off. (Via screen shot)
Jeff Heath kicks off. (Via screen shot)

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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