FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys have long held the belief that 2023 first-team All-Pro kicker Brandon Aubrey’s field goal range “is near unlimited.” So they put that to the test in Week 15 at the Carolina Panthers.
Aubrey drained a 65-yard field goal in Week 3 in a home game, indoors at AT&T Stadium versus the Baltimore Ravens, and that make marked the longest in Cowboys history as well as the second-longest in NFL history. The record for the longest ever is a 66-yarder by Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, which was made indoor at the Detroit LIons, and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy decided to give Aubrey the chance to break that record Sunday outdoors in Charlotte. With three seconds left in the first half and Dallas clinging to a 10-7 lead, Aubrey lined up for a 70-yard kick. The kick may have had the distance or come up just a smidge short, but that will forever remain unclear after he hooked the attempt incredibly wide to the left.
“I wish we were indoors,” McCarthy said on Monday. “I wish he would have had a real chance at it. I was scared to death when the returner caught the ball because I’ve been on the other side of that before so, 2005 in Chicago if you want to look it up. Right before the half. Last play of the half. He’s earned that opportunity. He does that on a regular basis. He’s so impressive with his consistency from that distance, so I obviously had the confidence that he could get it done. I know we got a little nervous there at the end because the wind, it wasn’t enough to make a decision on the direction in the fourth quarter. There was a little more wind going to our left, which would have been to the south than going to north. But hey, we gave it a shot.”
They did consider the wind being a factor, but McCarthy and special teams coordinator John “Bones” Fassel essentially said Y.O.L.O. and let Aubrey attempt the kick
“Right at the end of the half, we really wanted to get as close to the 50 as we can, and we were right about the 50ish. So we said if we get anywhere in that neck of the woods, we’re going to give it a big old whack,” Fassel said on Monday. “We knew we were going into the wind that direction, but we said at the end of the half the worst thing that could happen is [they] put a returner back there and we have to cover. So we went with it.”
The trajectory of the ball off of Aubrey’s foot was harder and a lot lower than what typically occurs when utilizing his typical mechanics, which harkened back to his days as a professional soccer player in the MLS.
“[Aubrey’s] approach was a little different. You see on tape, he did a little skip step, and he just tried to drive it,” Fassel said. “So it sure looked like a corner kick because it for sure swerved middle to the left. It was short, and we covered it. … We knew it was a shot to be taken, probably the percentages were a little bit low, but at that point [end of the] half of the game, that’s what we went with. It was good, and I think the guys appreciated the opportunity. I know Brandon did.”
The Cowboys don’t practice 70-yarders, but Aubrey naturally altered his mechanics to adjust for the distance.
“He didn’t intentionally do it [change his mechanics]. He kind of just, he deepened up a little bit,” Fassel said. … “What happened with his feet was basically just pure instincts. It’s just kind of part of the deal with him, which is good.”
Many of Aubrey’s attempts from 50-plus yards can appear to be good from near 70, as his 21 career makes from 50 yards or deeper are the most in the entire NFL since Aubrey entered the league in 2023. With a different wind situation, he may not have altered his approach at all.
“I think up to probably, I’m kind of speculating, but up to the 65-yarder that he’s made, I think it can all feel and be the same operation, swing and tempo,” Fassel said. “Seventy-yarder into the wind, that was different, and that was going to take extra. What he did was extra. I feel like that wind might have been a …. if we were going the other way, I think that would have given us a five-to-seven-yard advantage, and I think that would have been right above the crossbar if you had it between the uprights. But going that way was going to be a little harder. Going the other way, maybe he stays with his normal deal, just a little extra, a little bit lower trajectory.”
McCarthy feels the worst-case scenario with attempting a kick over 65 yards is the potential for an opponent to return a missed kick. That possibility especially haunts McCarthy because as the San Francisco offensive coordinator in 2005, he witnessed a missed 52-yard field goal into the Chicago wind by then-kicker Joe Nedney that led to a 108-yard return touchdown for Nathan Vasher and the Bears in a 17-9 win over McCarthy’s 49ers. Panthers returner Deven Thompkins caught Aubrey’s miss on Sunday six yards deep in the end zone and ran it back 37 yards to the Carolina 31 at the conclusion of the first half.
“Maybe honestly once every couple weeks, we’ll jog through a cover with our field goal team,” Fassel said. “We show it on tape in the field goal meetings. … This was the first time we really had a live one. The best guy [to make a tackle] would probably be [defensive end] Chauncey [Golston] … I think they enjoyed it [covering a kick]. [Left guard] Tyler Smith kind of got caught up in a little stutter and go by their returner, so we’ll have a little bit of fun with that on Thursday field.”
Fassel sees it a little bit differently because, in his opinion, the chaos of a blocked field goal is higher than a miss being caught deep and then being returned.
“I think on that one, I’d be more concerned with the kick being blocked,” Fassel said. “It’s going to come out low, and a block, you never know who ends up with the ball in their hands. That was really the first concern.”
However, Sunday’s miss won’t keep the Cowboys from preventing Aubrey from trying again from 70 yards out. They may just give more credence to the elements, whether that’s outdoors or indoors, because they feel the wind factored into the outcome heavily. Two of Dallas’ three final regular season games in 2024 will be at AT&T Stadium — Week 16 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Week 18 against the Washington Commanders — while Week 17 will take place at the Philadelphia Eagles, who have an outdoor stadium.
“I think the guys on the sideline were kind of excited to see what would happen especially the special teams guys. So if we get in that position again, I’m sure we’ll attempt it again, taking the conditions into factor whether it’s outdoors in Philly or after that,” Fassel said. “Yeah, he’s got 70 in him, for sure.”
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Author: Garrett Podell
December 17, 2024 | 12:35 am
