The Cowboys escaped with a win over the Colts on Sunday, but Brandon Aubrey’s latest miss is going to hang around.
Dallas needed nearly the full game to pull it out, and for a stretch late it looked like the result could swing the other way. The Cowboys were down 23-20 before they finally found the touchdown that put them ahead for good. Still, the sequence before that made the finish a lot messier than it needed to be.
Aubrey missed a 50-yard field goal before Dallas’ final drive. It was his 24th try from 50-plus yards since the start of last season, and the miss pushed him into double-digit misses from that range.
That miss also handed Indianapolis the ball at the Dallas 40-yard line, setting up a much shorter path to the field goal that gave the Colts their 23-20 lead. That’s the tradeoff with long attempts: when they go wrong, they can flip a game fast. Aubrey built his reputation on making kicks like that, but the margin for error has clearly gotten thinner.
There’s also a bigger number that matters here. Eight of those 50-plus attempts have come from 60 yards or more, which changes how the misses should be viewed. Half of Aubrey’s 60-plus tries are part of the overall misses, so there’s still a meaningful distinction between those bombs and the more standard 50-to-59-yard kicks.
Even with that context, the pressure is obvious. The Cowboys gave Aubrey an extension this offseason that made him the highest-paid kicker in the NFL, and that kind of deal comes with a simple expectation: he has to be more dependable, especially in the area that once made him stand out.
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