Chris Boniol Madden Career 1995-1999 - Peak 95 OVR

Chris Boniol went undrafted out of Louisiana Tech and won the Cowboys' kicking job in 1994, a precise, reliable leg on a championship team. He was one of the most accurate kickers in football in his brief prime, hitting 27 of 28 field goals in 1995 and, in a Monday night game against Green Bay in 1996, tying an NFL record with seven made field goals in a single game.

Madden's cards of him swing the way kicker ratings do. Boniol peaked at a 95 in Madden NFL 98 for the 1997 season, a Philadelphia card built on a 99 kick-power rating, with much lower numbers around it, the erratic grades the game hands specialists.

Boniol won a Super Bowl XXX ring with Dallas, then made the classic kicker's mistake of cashing in: he signed a large free-agent deal with the Eagles and struggled, particularly on longer attempts, lost his job, and was out of the league within a couple of years. Madden's high 1998 grade caught him just as the Eagles were paying for a prime that turned out to be mostly behind him. The seven field goals in Dallas were the peak; the Philadelphia contract was the fall.