The NFC East is in the hands of the Cowboys after Dallas whooped up on the division rival Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, holding the visitors to zero offensive touchdowns and 13 points. (The lone TD came on a scoop-and-score from defensive tackle Jalen Carter in the third quarter.) The Cowboys offense, meanwhile, racked up more than 30 points for the fifth consecutive week. If fellow NFC contender San Francisco is the Death Star, Dallas might be the closest thing to Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing fighter.
We could break down this game and focus on an efficient offense led by MVP favorite Dak Prescott along with elite receiver CeeDee Lamb and blossoming TE1 Jake Ferguson, or we could focus on the elite defense led by Micah Parsons and cornerback Stephon Gilmore. However, the oft-forgotten third phase of the game came up in perhaps the biggest way on Sunday night. That’s right—the player everyone is (rightfully) talking about this week is kicker Brandon Aubrey, and the discussion has centered around the number 30.
Aubrey has now made every one of his 30 field goal attempts since entering the NFL this year, the longest streak to start a career in NFL history. After years of searching for consistency from its kicker since releasing Dan Bailey before the 2018 season, Dallas appears to have finally found a real dude. With his 30 consecutive makes, Aubrey has blown away the record set by Cleveland’s Travis Coons, who made 18 straight to begin his career in 2015.
Aubrey, a former soccer player from Plano who was drafted in the first round of the 2017 MLS SuperDraft, put his full set of skills on display on Sunday after several drives stalled before getting to the red zone. None of his field goals against the Eagles could be called a “gimme,” with the shortest kick measuring 45 yards. Three of his field goals were 50 or more yards, bringing his season total of 50-plus-yard field goals to eight. Only the Browns’ Dustin Hopkins has made as many such field goals this year.
The thing about a field goal streak such as this is that it’s very possible a kicker was simply the beneficiary of a long string of short field goal attempts. And to be fair, Aubrey has had quite a few short kicks to begin his career. Entering Sunday night, he had the shortest average field goal distance for any kicker with at least three attempts, at 34.6 yards. But coach Mike McCarthy trusted he could do more, and Aubrey delivered against the Eagles.
Adding the four kicks he converted to his resumé brought his average distance up by more than two full yards to 37.1 yards, longer than six other kickers. Given the various factors surrounding those kicks (including distance, the field surface, the fact they were made indoors, and the game situations) the likelihood that Aubrey would make all four of those kicks (from 60, 59, 45, and 50 yards) was about 12.5 percent.
But extending his record for consecutive field goals was just one of Aubrey’s history-making accomplishments. By converting the two long kicks, he became the first player in NFL history with multiple field goals from 59 or more yards in a game. Both of those field goals had an expected make probability of under 50 percent, and the odds that he’d miss at least one of them were more than 75 percent. But math be damned, said the former software engineer-turned-NFL kicking star—he made them both easily, with distance to spare.
Aubrey’s prowess puts him at the top of the charts in terms of plain field goal success and field goal success relative to expectation. Using the same model illustrated above, which tells us the probability that any given kick will be successful, Aubrey has nailed four more field goals than expected, more than any kicker in the NFL.
He and the Chiefs’ Harrison Butker are the only kickers to remain perfect through Week 14, but Aubrey’s 30 attempts far outpaces Butker’s 23. (Aubrey has missed three extra-point attempts. Nobody’s perfect!)
If he keeps up this pace (or even close to it), Aubrey most likely will end the season with one of the most impressive and productive seasons from a kicker in recent memory. His successful field goal rate is 13.6 percentage points higher than expected, which ranks in the top 10 for all kickers with at least 30 attempts since 1999. To compare it to a future Hall of Famer, that’s better than 10 of Justin Tucker’s 12 seasons to date. And with four games left, Aubrey is close to accomplishing something Tucker has never done in his career: make every one of his field goal attempts.
If Aubrey closes out the year without a miss, he’ll be only the third kicker in history with at least 30 field goal attempts to accomplish the feat, joining the Vikings’ Gary Anderson (35 of 35) in 1998 and the Colts’ Mike Vanderjagt (37 of 37) in 2003.
The other, admittedly less exciting area that Aubrey handles is the kickoffs. There’s potentially some value to be had in a player who can kick it high and drop it in at the 1-yard line to try to force a return short of the 25-yard line, but that will always carry the risk of the big return. McCarthy’s Cowboys seem to prefer kicking off through the end zone, and few kickers do that as well as Aubrey. His 94.4 percent touchback rate ranks second in the NFL behind Washington’s Joey Slye, who set the modern record for touchback rate in 2019 at 94.3 percent. The only reason Aubrey might not have the record for highest touchback rate at the end of the year is because Slye is on pace to break his own record.
Brandon Aubrey is having a season to remember, and it was on full display on Sunday night before a national TV audience. A 28-year-old rookie starting his career with 30 straight successful field goals is wildly unheard of, and it’s getting to the point where we’re going to start talking about whether he can reach the outright consecutive field goal record. (It’s 44, in case you’re wondering.) He might prove to be the final piece of the puzzle that pushes the Cowboys over the hump this year as they seek the deep playoff run they are so very capable of.
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