I was on the phone with former Giants kicker Matt Bahr the other day and asked him what year he retired.
After a pause, Bahr said, “Well, I think the eighth or ninth and final time I was fired was in 1995.”
He was not doing it intentionally, but in that concise sentence Bahr defined the fleeting, unstable — and in many cases — disrespected life of an NFL kicker.
Bahr has been called by Bill Parcells the most clutch kicker he ever coached. To know Parcells and his disdain and distrust for most kickers, that is the highest of praise coming from the most significant of authorities.
Yet, at the end of his enduring, productive and clutch career, Bahr did not call his own shot about retirement. He did not decide when he wanted to walk away from the game and do it on his own terms.
That is not the way it works for NFL kickers. They do not retire. They are sent out to pasture by whichever their last team is. When was the last time an NFL kicker announced his retirement?
In the case of Billy Cundiff, who was cut by the Redskins on Tuesday, it’s possible that he has been sent out to pasture for the last time, despite the fact that just two years ago he represented the AFC as its Pro Bowl kicker and was given a fat new contract.
Cundiff’s career has deteriorated since then. In January’s AFC Championship game in New England, he missed a 32-yard field goal for the Ravens that would have sent it to overtime.
That marked the end of his career in Baltimore. Enter Washington, which signed Cundiff this season.
He missed four of six field goal attempts in a two-game span and was cut. But in one of those two games, Cundiff redeemed himself from earlier misses by booting a game-winning 41-yarder to beat the Buccaneers in the final seconds.
“I was [garbage], absolute [garbage] early in the game,” Cundiff told the media after the game. “I kept saying, ‘Thank you God for giving me a chance to prove that those other kicks were just a fluke.’ ”
In the case of Redskins coach Mike Shanahan, he felt like the previous misses were no fluke, so he cut Cundiff and signed unproven Kai Forbath.
Cundiff, two years removed from the height of his career, now is damaged goods, and it’s difficult to see any team rushing to sign him.
Remember former Jets kicker Doug Brien? He missed two kicks late in the 2005 AFC Divisional playoff game in Pittsburgh — one at the end of regulation and one in overtime. Despite being one of the most statistically accurate kickers in the NFL, the Jets released Brien that offseason, and he never kicked in the NFL again.
Could Cundiff be facing that same cruel fate?
“It’s a tough business,” Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes said last week. “You finish a game perfectly [but] … that’s what you are expected to do.
“You hate to see guys get cut, but that’s the business we’re in. We know it when we sign up for it. You have to be mentally prepared for anything.”
Even the abrupt end to your career.
mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com