From 58 yards out: Daniel Carlson is the steadiest thing about the 2-4 IR Kings

Nobody buys a jersey for the kicker. Nobody circles his name on the lineup card on Sunday morning, and nobody calls the beat writer on Monday to ask about him. A kicker gets noticed twice a season: when he misses the one that matters, and when he makes one so long it stops the room.

Daniel Carlson made one of those on Sunday. He made a field goal from 58 yards. He made another from 51. He also missed one from 55, which is the part of the job nobody puts on a highlight reel, and he added four extra points. That came to 11 points for the IR Kings.

They lost anyway, 93.90 to 85.78 to All Strong. That is the honest frame for this story, and I'm not going to dress it up. A kicker profile written after a loss isn't a celebration. It's a question: when the guy who comes on for a handful of snaps is one of your best scorers, what does that say about everyone else?

First, the man himself, as far as the record lets me go. Through six weeks Carlson has made six of his eight field goal tries, with two missed extra points along the way. That is not a perfect line. Those two extra points are two more misses than any kicker wants, and the 55-yarder didn't get there. I'd be doing him no favors pretending otherwise. But it is a line that keeps showing up in the box score, and on this team that is worth something.

I've asked Carlson twice this week what goes through his head before a kick from 58, and how he became a kicker in the first place. I haven't heard back yet, so I'm not going to tell you what he was thinking, or that he was nervous, or calm, or anything else. I don't know. What I know is what he did.

Here is how Sunday's starting lineup shook out. The two running backs, J.K. Dobbins and Javonte Williams, were the only starters who scored more, and only by a hair. Right behind them, dead even, were Carlson and Puka Nacua. Nacua is the receiver this offense is built around. Carlson is the kicker. On Sunday they gave the IR Kings exactly the same thing.

That's my point, and it's an opinion, so take it as one: I don't think the IR Kings have a kicker problem, and I don't think the bench is the whole story either. I think they have a touchdown problem. When a 58-yard field goal is one of the best things that happens to your lineup all afternoon, drives are ending a few yards short of where they need to. Yes, a big quarterback day sat on the bench Sunday. Everybody has written that sentence already, and I'm leaving it at one.

What I keep coming back to is that Carlson isn't part of the turnover I've been writing about all fall. The receiver room has been a revolving door; I wrote last night about the steady line of new faces underneath Nacua and Terry McLaurin. The kicker's job hasn't been part of that conversation. On a team still working out who it is, there is something to be said for the one spot nobody has had to worry about.

I'll admit my bias. I've always had a soft spot for the specialists, the kickers and punters and long snappers who do a narrow job in front of everybody and only get mentioned when it goes wrong. But a soft spot isn't a reason to oversell anyone. Eleven points is a great day for a kicker. It isn't a plan for winning a division.

And the division is the backdrop to all of this. The IR Kings are 2-4, third in the Remote, three games behind Sports Ballers at 5-1. Casey Monroe, who covers the Remote for Ballers Sports Network, put it about as plainly as anyone could when I asked him this week: a three-game lead can be caught, but not by accident. His read is that the IR Kings are a spoiler with a chance, not a favorite. I think that's fair. I'd only add that you don't get to play spoiler in November without winning the games in front of you in October.

Which brings us to this weekend. The IR Kings go to Fifth Quarter, another 2-4 club, one that has lost two straight, the latest by less than two points to Kamehameha. Two 2-4 teams meeting in Week 7 isn't a must-win on paper. It feels like one anyway. The loser is looking at 2-5 and the long way back. The winner gets to talk about the race for another week.

One more note from practice. Hezekiah Masses, a defensive back, has reported to the IR Kings and was working in the secondary rotation behind the starting group on Tuesday. I don't know yet what role he's in line for, and I won't guess. He's a name to keep an eye on.

If the IR Kings win at Fifth Quarter, I suspect it won't be because their kicker does it again from 58. It will be because the drives that stalled on Sunday finish in the end zone. But if it comes down to one kick late, I know whose name I'd want on the card. He's the one part of this team that has kept showing up. That counts for something.