The Cowboys have signed kicker Brandon Aubrey, who has played for the USFL's Birmingham Stallions the last two years, per sources. He made 14 of 15 FG chances and all 35 PATs in 2023. He is a Plano native, played soccer at Notre Dame. He will compete with Tristan Vizcaino in camp
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) July 6, 2023
For those waiting to see when the other shoe would drop on the Cowboys’ open kicking competition for 2023, the club is finally putting one foot in front of the other. Dallas, who signed a relatively inexperienced Tristan Vizcaino earlier in the offseason, have now added another name to the mix a few weeks before training camp opens.
Dallas has signed Brandon Aubrey, most recently from the USFL’s Birmingham club. Aubrey, 28, is a former soccer player from the University of Notre Dame who spent a couple seasons in different professional soccer leagues from 2017-2018. The Plano, TX native will return to his roots in hopes of giving Dallas a steady leg after the turmoil that erupted in the position during the most crucial phase of the 2022 season.
Dallas had brought back big-leg kicker Brett Maher for 2022 and things were going ridiculously well until Maher got the yips in the regular season finale. In Week 18, Maher missed an extra point in a blowout loss to Washington, then missed four more point-after attempts in the 31-14 blowout win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He followed that up with a miss against San Francisco before hitting on his two field-goal attempts.
Vizcaino was signed in February a couple of weeks before free agency officially began. Dallas has opted not to spend on the position in recent years and avoided any of the bigger-named kickers in free agency this year.
As for Aubrey, he doesn’t have the big leg that Maher did, but if he can hit kicks with the level of consistency he has in the USFL then he has a chance to stick around.