The player payroll of an NFL team is about $175 million. But many teams pay the place-kicker on the roster roughly the league minimum salary, which is often less than $1 million annually.

So what? To most fans, it seems like an easy job.

Try telling that to the Minnesota Vikings or the Cleveland Browns. On Sunday, each team surely wished it had loosened the purse strings to pay for a veteran established kicker instead of the young low-cost versions they put in uniform.

The failures of the Minnesota and Cleveland kickers Sunday were a flabbergasting cavalcade of end-over-end footballs spinning wide left and right of the goal posts. Minnesota rookie Daniel Carlson missed three field-goal attempts, two of them in overtime, and cost the Vikings a critical victory in a game at Green Bay that ended in a tie. Cleveland’s second-year kicker, Zane Gonzalez, missed two key extra-point attempts and two field-goal attempts, including one in the final seconds of the game, which helped hand the Browns another inconceivable defeat in a game at New Orleans that they had led most of the way.

By Monday, the Vikings had released Carlson and the Browns had cut their ties with Gonzalez, who may have been playing through a groin injury. The Vikings will at least do the right thing and sign eight-year veteran Dan Bailey, according to multiple news reports. In a cost-cutting move, Bailey, the second most accurate kicker in NFL history, was surprisingly let go by the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 1.

But the Vikings finally coming to their senses and realizing that the more pricey Bailey was a better choice than Carlson will not get them back a victory that could have helped them when the playoff chase is sorted out in late December. Bailey’s contract is likely to cost the Vikings as much as $3 million this week. How much would the Vikings, who are Super Bowl contenders, pay in the postseason to host a conference championship game instead of playing it on the road? But money won’t be a factor — no amount of it will get them back the victory lost Sunday.

Maybe next season, Minnesota will give as much attention to who gets the kicking job as it would a debate about who should be the sixth linebacker on the depth chart (who often makes more than the kicker as well).

As for the Browns, it is not clear if they have learned their lesson at all. To replace Gonzalez, they signed another rookie kicker, Greg Joseph. But hey, at least they are saving a few bucks while stumbling through another winless season.

On Sunday, Minnesota, which six months ago gave Kirk Cousins $84 million to play quarterback, seemed poised to reap the benefits of that decision. Cousins, in a spirited duel with the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers, passed for four touchdowns and 425 yards and, with the game tied, moved the Vikings into position for a 49-yard field goal about halfway through overtime. But Carlson, whom the Vikings got for a $248,000 signing bonus and a small raise over the overall rookie minimum salary, booted the football well right of the goal posts. He also missed a field-goal attempt in the second quarter.

No kick from any distance is automatic, which is too often forgotten, but surely it was not asking too much of Carlson to make one of three attempts on the day, especially from an average distance like 35 yards.

For a second consecutive week, Gonzalez, who was also earning just above the league minimum, failed to help the Browns get their first win since Dec. 24, 2016.

Being a place-kicker in the NFL is a hard job, especially in the final seconds of a game. That is why the accomplished, experienced kickers like Baltimore’s Justin Thomas, who makes about $4.2 million annually, get paid about eight times what the rookie kickers make. NFL general managers need to work harder to identify the best performers at such a demanding and essential job and keep them around by paying them more than one-175th of the payroll.

That might prevent more nightmarish outcomes like the ones the Vikings and Browns endured Sunday.