The Cowboys’ kicker situation used to be one of the easiest parts of the roster to trust. Brandon Aubrey arrived and immediately changed the math, giving Dallas a weapon that could flip field position and cash in from deep range. For a while, that was enough to make the position feel solved.
It doesn’t feel that way now.
Aubrey is still giving the Cowboys elite kickoffs, and those have helped Dallas win the field-position battle better than any team in the league. But the field goals have become a different story, and Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals was another reminder. He hit from 31, 35 and 41 yards, and he converted all three extra points, but he missed from 61.
That miss fits a larger pattern. Aubrey has missed seven of his last 15 kicks from 55 yards or more, and he has now missed four straight from 59 yards or longer.
For a kicker making $7 million a year, that’s a problem Dallas can’t ignore. To be fair, some of those attempts were blocked, and one came from 65 yards, a distance where NFL kickers are not expected to be automatic.
Even so, the bottom line is hard to miss: Aubrey is just 3-for-7 from 50-plus in 2026.
The slide stands out even more when you look at the full arc. In 2025, he went 11-for-17 from 50-plus, a 64.7 percent clip.
The year before that, he was 14-for-17, good for 82.4 percent. In 2023, he was perfect, hitting all 10 of his attempts from 50-plus.
That kind of drop-off is impossible to brush aside, even with blocks and long-distance attempts part of the picture.
What makes the situation tougher for Dallas is that the team seems to be playing like Aubrey is still that earlier version of himself. Brian Schottenheimer has been coaching with the confidence that Aubrey can bail out drives from long range, and that has shaped the offense in a conservative way. When the Cowboys get past midfield, especially late in halves, Schottenheimer tends to tighten up.
Instead of leaning on the $60 million quarterback and two elite wide receivers, Dallas often settles into a safer approach. Runs get telegraphed.
The offense seems content to take three points rather than chase seven and risk coming away with nothing. Aubrey has become a crutch.
That would be easier to justify if he were still hitting deep kicks at the same rate he once did. But the recent numbers say otherwise, and that should push the Cowboys toward a more aggressive approach, not a more cautious one. Touchdowns are still worth more than field goals, and the current version of Aubrey doesn’t erase the need to keep attacking.
The blocked kicks matter here too. If Dallas is having trouble protecting those attempts, that should only reinforce the idea that Schottenheimer needs to keep pressing for better field position and more scoring chances. The Cowboys can’t keep leaning on a kicker who is no longer as dependable from distance as he once was.
None of this erases what Aubrey has done for Dallas. His success created the expectation, and his contract reflects it. But if he doesn’t straighten things out, the Cowboys are going to keep feeling the effects - and Schottenheimer’s flaws will keep getting exposed along the way.
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