The Cowboys are going outside the box to change up their kicking situation.
When the Giants host the Cowboys for their Week 1 “Sunday Night Football” prime-time showdown, they will see a new face at kicker for Dallas.
That’s because the Cowboys are set to open the 2023 regular season with 28-year-old rookie kicker Brandon Aubrey.
If you haven’t heard of Aubrey, you’re not alone.
He played soccer while in college at Notre Dame, and made it to the MLS as a first-round draft pick of Toronto FC in 2017.
But one year later Aubrey found himself out a job, and by 2022 he had completed the transformation from futbol to football, locking down the kicking job with the USFL’s Birmingham Stallions.
Following the Stallions’ 2023 USFL title, Aubrey, a Plano, Texas native, returned to the Lone Star State and competed in training camp with veteran Tristan Vizcaino for the kicking job with the Cowboys, who had moved on from Brett Maher.
When Dallas released Vizcaino earlier this month, Aubrey became the favorite for the job.
He capped off a successful preseason run Saturday with a 59-yard field goal in Saturday’s 31-16 win over the Las Vegas Raiders.
It was a bounce-back boot for Aubrey, who had previously missed from the same distance earlier in the game.
“Yeah, it was great,” Aubrey said postgame Saturday, per CBS Sports.
“You don’t often get a second shot at something like that. It was good, I was able to just realize I put just a little too much on the first one, and then take some off and just hit my normal ball. Hit it nice and pure, and it went through the uprights. It was a good feeling.”
Aubrey will be replacing Brett Maher, who capped off another solid regular season with a disastrous playoff performance.
Maher was 29 of 32 on field goal attempts and 50 of 53 on extra point attempts last season. Maher signed with the Denver Broncos in July.
But in the wild-card win over the Buccaneers, Maher missed four extra points and then missed another in the 19-12 Divisional Round loss to the 49ers.
“Every end is the start of a new beginning,” Aubrey said.
“So for me, this is my third career, and so just start looking forward to it and just living by myself. That got me here.”
Cowboys hope Aubrey can help get Dallas back to the postseason for the third straight year.
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