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IRVING – A string of tape runs down the right side of Mike Vanderjagt's locker with all sorts of numbers written on it in black Sharpie ink. The numbers represent the 31 missed or blocked field goal attempts in his career.

"Just have to make sure the tape doesn't get any longer," Vanderjagt said last week.

He said this standing at his locker, a diamond-hoop earring in his left ear. In his nine NFL seasons, he has been called self-assured, cocky, arrogant and confident ... and some other things, such as idiot kicker and Vanderjerk. But his numbers do not lie.

He has made 219 of 250 field goal attempts in the regular season, making him the most accurate kicker in NFL history. By making tries of 26 and 50 yards in his Cowboys debut last week against Washington, Vanderjagt upped his career success rate a tenth of a point to 87.6 percent.

How good is he? Go to his Web site, www.mikevanderjagt.net, and he tells you: "Who's the best field goal kicker of all time? I am," he says. He also points out, "I'm the best there ever was. I can't help it."

IRWIN THOMPSON / DMN Mike Vanderjagt kicks a field goal in last Sunday's win over Washington.

Vanderjagt filmed the clip after he signed with the Cowboys in March for three years and $5.4 million (including a $2.5 million signing bonus) but well before his troublesome right groin caused him so many problems that he missed two preseason games. He frustrated coach Bill Parcells with not only his inactivity in training camp but also his inconsistency.

He made one of three attempts in the preseason but quickly pointed out that that was how he finished the 2003 preseason before going without a miss in the regular season.

Parcells didn't listen. He wants to see something from veterans in training camp and didn't see it from Vanderjagt, so he left the kicker at home for the opener at Jacksonville. For the first time in his career Vanderjagt, who grew up in Oakville, Ontario, was, to use a hockey term, a healthy scratch.

"It's been over-evaluated, but it wasn't the smoothest of transitions from when I signed to this point," Vanderjagt said. "For me, I'm 2-for-2 on the season, and that's what I was brought here to do: to make field goals. I haven't missed yet as far as I'm concerned.

"Everything feels good on the field. Everything else has been trying, kind of getting old."

Vanderjagt's teammates with the CFL's Toronto Argonauts had a nickname for him: Game Day.

"It's not that he didn't like practice, but let's just say he missed more than he should have," said Vanderjagt's former holder, Paul Masotti. "He is a character."

Parcells hadn't coached a kicker like Vanderjagt. Matt Bahr didn't appear on Late Show with David Letterman. Adam Vinatieri didn't light into his quarterback and coach the way Vanderjagt did with Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy.

"That's not important," Parcells said. "Do they make kicks or don't they? That's all that's important."

Parcells can be harsh on kickers – Billy Cundiff wilted at times under Parcells' forcefulness – but Bahr is the gold standard for Parcells. The coach's favorite game is the New York Giants' 15-13 victory at San Francisco in the 1990 NFC Championship, won when Bahr nailed a 42-yarder – his fifth field goal – in the final second. Bahr also provided the winning points in Super Bowl XXV against Buffalo.

Vanderjagt said he did not see a need to consult former Parcells kickers – such as Vinatieri or Washington's John Hall, who was with the New York Jets under Parcells – after joining the Cowboys.

"Coming here, I didn't try to fi- gure out what it would be like," he said. "I thought it was going to be easy. I thought I'm pretty good at what I do and he'll leave me alone. Apparently, that's not the case."

Bahr, who also kicked for Parcells with New England, knows what Parcells is like. Bahr said he treated every attempt in practice like it was the Super Bowl.

"He just threatened me," Bahr said, laughing. "Mine was, 'You just have to make field goals,' and I did my best to do that. It was not the trap-door mentality that some coaches have ... you miss a kick and you're gone. Parcells was not that way. But he said it was your job to make kicks, and if you did, you'd stay around. If you don't, then he'd find guys who can."

Like Bahr, Vanderjagt is versatile, a trait Parcells looks for in all players. In high school basketball, Vanderjagt averaged 31 points per game. He made it to the final cuts of Canada's national soccer team when he was 16. He excelled in hockey, too. He was a quarterback at White Oaks High School, signing with Michigan State before ending up at West Virginia.

He holds the NFL record for consecutive field goals made (42). He has 11 game-winning kicks, although many remember him more for his miss in Indianapolis in last year's playoffs, a kick that could have forced overtime against Pittsburgh. He has been to a Pro Bowl. He didn't miss in nine tries in two Grey Cups with Toronto and was 14-for-14 in the playoffs.

And he's a self-made player. He was cut three times by CFL teams and was working at a sporting goods store in Huntington, W.Va., when the now-defunct Minnesota Fighting Pike of the Arena Football League called. He got to Toronto in 1996 as a punter and kicker, and in 1998 he joined the Colts.

But he also has an eccentric side. In high school he once wrote "Truck," the name of the star opposing defensive tackle, on a headband. The player saw it and became distracted, and White Oaks won the game easily. Playing receiver on the scout team with the Argonauts, Vanderjagt would write the numbers of the defensive backs on a towel. After he beat one, he'd cross out the player's number.

"He always had a swagger about him, let's put it that way," Masotti said. "I'm pretty close with him, and even I'd have to say, 'Mike, it's me.' But deep down, he's a caring guy."

When Vanderjagt's 50-yarder sailed through the uprights against Washington last Sunday, he felt a sense of relief. Not for himself but for those around him.

He bumped chests and pounded fists. The swagger was back even if – inside – it had never left.

"Maybe in the past I would've said, 'I told you so,' but I'm older, wiser now," he said. "I understand what makes Bill tick, and I'm just going to kick field goals till he tells me not to, and then I'm not going to kick them. Internally, I feel great about the fact that I'm 2-for-2, but externally I'll say that's what I was brought in here for."

E-mail tarcher@dallasnews.com

Born: Oakville, Ontario

Age: 36

Ht./Wt.: 6-5, 218 pounds

College: West Virginia

Career: Made pro debut in 1993 with CFL Saskatchewan Roughriders. ... Also played with CFL's Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Arena Football League's Minnesota Fighting Pike. ... Helped Argonauts to second straight Grey Cup championship in 1997 when he led league in punting (44.9-yard average) and was 33 of 43 on field goals. ... NFL debut came with Indianapolis in 1998.

Personal: He and wife Janalyn have a 7-year-old son, Jay Michael.