Who said historic kicks are reserved for regular-season and playoff games? Not Brandon Aubrey. Already a surging face of NFL special teams thanks to his unprecedented transition to football, the Pro Bowl kicker furthered his emerging legacy Saturday night, drilling a 66-yard field goal as time expired in the first half of a preseason matchup with the Las Vegas Raiders, tying the longest kick ever converted in the NFL.
Technically, preseason statistics don’t go into the official NFL record books, so Aubrey’s massive boot will be confined to highlight reels of Dallas’ practice matchup with Las Vegas. Still, Cowboys coaches and teammates couldn’t get enough of Saturday’s kick, which would’ve matched Baltimore Ravens great Justin Tucker’s 66-yard field goal for the longest of all time, had it occurred a few weeks later.
Here’s the crazier part: The NFL’s NextGen Stats estimates Aubrey’s kick would’ve been good from 72 yards. Which would’ve easily broken Tucker’s record, if the kick happened in a real game.
It’s a significant but unsurprising development for Aubrey, considering how much the Cowboys kicker has already accomplished in a short amount of time. The 29-year-old Missouri native famously began his professional sports career on the soccer field, where he was a 2017 draft pick of MLS’ Toronto FC. He only began training for football in 2019, and debuted as a pro kicker for the Birmingham Stallions, now part of the UFL spring league, starting in 2022. Converting 32 of 37 field goals in two seasons for the Stallions, Aubrey’s successful transition to the gridiron convinced the Cowboys to sign him last July.
The rest is history: Aubrey made his NFL debut at 28, and he immediately challenged all-star veterans like Tucker for the title of most accurate kicker in the league. His 36 field goals made and 157 total points in 2023 led the NFL, and his 94.7% field goal rate ranked among the best in the game.