COWBOYS STRIKE GOLD IN USFL
Rookie Brandon Aubrey Setting NFL, Team Records Weekly
Brandon Aubrey won’t miss.
That is the thought of Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy and special teams coordinator John Fassel, when Aubrey trots out for Cowboys field goal attempt.
They aren’t wrong, as Aubrey has now hit the first 30 field goal tries of his career, smashing the NFL record of 18 that was set by Cleveland’s Travis Coons in 2015.
“He’s in an unprecedented groove,” McCarthy said. “I have just been so impressed with everything he has done.”
Aubrey’s road to success has been somewhat different from almost all the other 31 kickers in the league. He started out as a soccer player, accepting a scholarship with Notre Dame out of high school. After four years in South Bend, Aubrey was a first-round pick (21st overall) of Toronto FC of Major League Soccer 2017 SuperDraft.
After spending 2017 with Toronto FC and 2018 with the Bethlehem Steel FC of the United States Soccer League, Aubrey hung up his cleats to become a software engineer after the 2018 season.
In 2019 he thought he might be able to kick a football, so he started working with Mississippi State kicker and kicking coach Brian Egan three times a week and was subsequently drafted by the Birmingham Stallions in the 2022 USFL draft.
In two seasons with Birmingham, Aubrey hit 32 of 37 field goals and 57 of 59 extra points, which was good enough for the Cowboys to show interest.
But instead of bringing him in for a tryout, Dallas went ahead and signed him to a contract to compete with Tristan Vizcaino in training camp.
It didn’t take long for him to impress the Cowboys coaches.
“The first time I had a chance to stand behind him, the foot speed, but the way the ball comes off his foot,” McCarthy said about his first impression of Aubrey in training camp. “You could see right away his ability to strike the football was top notch. We saw that early in camp and that is part of the reason why we made the decision early. It’s, ‘hey, let’s give him all the reps. He has a chance to be an outstanding kicker.’ Because, you never really know until you get in there and go through it with them.”
Aubrey has rewarded the Cowboys belief with an NFL record that grows weekly, after he added a 60-, 59-, 50- and 45-yard field goals in the win over Philadelphia. He is the first player in NFL history to have two field goals of 59 yards or longer in the same game. His 60-yarder in Sunday night’s win over the Eagles was the first 60-plus yard field goal made in the first quarter in league history, and the second longest by a Cowboys rookie behind Brett Maher’s 62-yarder in 2018. Aubrey has made eight field goals of over 50 yards this season, a new Cowboys record, and his eight touchbacks last weekend pushed his total to 84 this season, a single-season franchise record. He needs just five more to break the NFL record of 88 set by Tampa Bay’s Bradley Pinion in 2021.
“I haven’t really coached Brandon Aubrey,” Fassel said. “I say that respectfully, because I haven’t dabbled with anything – hist steps, his swing, his approach. I haven’t done anything. It has been, what does he need as far as the operation.”
Apparently not much.
Now 28 years old, Aubrey, who was named NFC Special Teams Player of the Week for his performance on Sunday against Philadelphia, is older than most rookies, which shows up in his preparation.
Everything is the same – from the way he warms up to each swing of his leg on kickoffs, field goals and extra point attempts, the rookie doesn’t get rattled.
“You see the consistency, because the consistency in everything you do is a part of his efficiency,” McCarthy said. “As you watch him in his prep, his swing and the tempo into the kick is super consistent. Just like anything, I purposely, early in the season, gave him kicks that he may have thought he wasn’t going to get, because you have to do that. I learned that with Mason Crosby back in my early tenure as a head coach – I think on opening day he hit the game winner as a rookie. So, it’s important to take those opportunities. We did that early in the season, so now in a big game like (Sunday) night, that’s another huge step for him to go out there and swing it.”
Aubrey is not doing it alone; he is part of a trio, with punter Bryan Anger and long snapper Trent Sieg, that has come together as one of the best special teams groups in the league.
“It’s an outstanding battery,” McCarthy said. “The battery of your punter, your snapper, your holder, all that plays into this.”
But without Fassel, Aubrey and his two mates would not have come together like they have this season.
“John Fassel does a tremendous job with them,” McCarthy said. “You see the connection and how these guys work, that’s a very close-knit group. And the compliment for John is that it has been like that every year, regardless of who the kicker has been. I think John is top notch in the subculture that he creates around special teams.”
And with Aubrey, he started the indoctrination to the Fassel way with text messages. Fassel then followed those messages up by secretly taking in a Stallions game in June, before signing Aubrey on July 6 without a tryout because they didn’t want him to get away.
He didn’t and now he is in the NFL records book, the Cowboys records book and certainly headed to an All-Pro selection and the first Pro Bowl of his career.
Not bad for a soccer player.