6 August 29 - september 4, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents there’s a significant difference in whether the “you could do that” came after a missed or made field goal. Not only because it’s al- ways good to be true and accurate, but it turns out, this was a case of one skilled ath- lete encouraging another skilled athlete in a way that most of us decidedly non-athletic mortals could never attempt. Jenn was telling Brandon, whether he agreed with her or not, that he could indeed do something that she had every reason to believe he could do. It’s sort of a “Haven’t been there, but could still do that” scenario. It’s a world apart from most couple’s convos during a Sunday Cowboys game, to be sure. Brandon Aubrey’s skepticism soon turned to at least a modicum of optimism when he and Jenn went to a high school near their home in North Texas to test his leg on a football rather than a soccer ball. Af- ter a few test kicks, he banged one through the uprights from 60 yards away. “I was like, ‘Oh darn, maybe I do need to try this, and maybe she was right about this,’” he said. “So we found a kicking coach and went from there.” B rian Egan coaches kickers looking to make the jump from high school to college, and in some select cases, looking to go from kicking in college to play- ing on Sundays in the pros. A former college placekicker for Mississippi State, where he was a teammate of current Cowboys QB Dak Prescott, Egan was more intrigued than skeptical when it came to Aubrey’s back- ground. When Aubrey contacted Egan about coaching him in 2019, the coach already had plenty of experience with athletes transi- tioning from soccer to football. Many foot- ball kickers have soccer backgrounds, Egan said, although successfully making the jump from one sport to the other isn’t as easy as some movies make it out to be. Plus, most of Egan’s clientele were not married with full- time corporate careers. In fact, Aubrey’s first session with the coach was in a group of a dozen or so school-aged kickers. Even so, it didn’t take Egan long to realize that his new pupil was more than just a guy barely hang- ing onto his glory days. “I could tell he had real potential just by the way he struck the ball,” Egan said. “He was just a natural ball striker, and I think be- ing in pro soccer helped him have the right mindset and work ethic. He had left the job of professional soccer and was essentially chasing a dream that he didn’t know if it was attainable or not since he didn’t have a foot- ball background. But he had the right mind- set.” Egan pointed out that there are only 32 of the jobs that Aubrey wanted available — a particularly challenging goal to reach. The fact that Aubrey has a cannon where most of us have a right foot is only part of the equa- tion for success. Perhaps more important than having Aubrey train merely by kicking a bunch of field goals, he needed to develop a new type of muscle memory. The coach explained to the kicker that all kicks are not created equal, and the technical differences between kicking a soccer ball and a football required a bit of rewiring in Aubrey. He and his pupil were practicing a few times a week in Frisco, mostly after work. Practices sometimes entailed more than merely aiming for the middle of the goalposts. On occasion, Egan reportedly chal- lenged Aubrey to hit tall, narrow light poles in the middle of a grassy field in a park near their usual training spot. The difficult task was warranted due to the un- usually large leap the kicker was hoping to make. “Of course, most of the guys you see play- ing on Sunday either played in high school and then in college and made it to the next level,” he said. “So, I always thought Bran- don had the ability, but I just didn’t know if the opportunity was going to arise.” It took a while, but in 2022, less than three full years after his couch conversa- tion with Jenn, Aubrey got the chance to put some pro football on his resume. He was drafted by the Birmingham Stallions of the USFL, a spring football league with a number of former college stars as well as players with NFL experience. So long for now, short-lived computer science career. He promptly led the league in all major kicking categories while helping the Stal- lions to the USFL title. In 2023, he and his team duplicated the success of the previous year, and Aubrey again led the league’s placekickers in the top categories as his team again claimed the USFL champion- ship. Aubrey may have started late, but he made up for lost time in a major way. Ma- jor enough that he was invited to the training camp of two NFL teams in the summer of ’23: the Washington Com- manders and the Dallas Cowboys. For Au- brey, choosing his hometown team, the one he and his family watched together every weekend, was an easy choice. A few weeks later, the older-than-usual, 28-year- old rookie, whose All-American face makes him look like he’s still in college, was the last man kicking when the final roster was announced. I t’s not unusual for a pro athlete to dis- cuss their “process” or how it’s impor- tant for them to “trust the process.” In a practice-makes-perfect way, an athlete’s process for training and execution is all there is when it comes to ensuring success. Aubrey is, unsurprisingly, a big believer in adhering to his process. He became an even bigger adherent a year ago. That’s when he shanked the biggest kick of his life, which happened to be his first NFL regular season extra point attempt in his first game for the Cowboys. That’s right, one of the fin- est seasons any NFL placekicker has ever had, let alone a rookie, began with a miss from the 15-yard line. Aubrey’s miss was a rare low point in the game for the ’Boys, who dominated the New York Giants in a 40–0 victory. It didn’t take long for Aubrey to know where he went wrong, however. Before the kick attempt, he had gotten out of his rhythm. He didn’t fol- low his process. “We had just blocked a field goal, in the rain, and went down and scored a touch- down,” Aubrey recalls. “So it was a sudden change in that I went from drinking water and watching the other kicker kick and tak- ing it all in to all of a sudden running onto the field to make my own kick. I tried to take a moment to enjoy it almost as a fan, and I wasn’t in the right mental state.” Instead of attempting the kick just as he had done thousands upon thousands of times before in practice and in the USFL, the rookie “was out of synch and in the wrong headspace” by not preparing himself the way he had been trained for what was then the moment where his dreams finally be- came reality. He hurried himself, and it cost him, in that moment at least. “So, yeah,” he said. “That was a quick les- son for me to always stay mentally prepared and to just go through my process on the field.” His process involves keeping up with the time on the clock and the distance to a first down or to the goal line as well as kicking balls into the net on the sideline once the team gets into field goal range. Once he trots onto the field to attempt a field goal or extra point, the process becomes more mental, he said. Some key breathing techniques help to put him where he needs to be while he ze- roes in on the steps in between where he’ll start his approach and where he’ll meet the ball. It’s not rocket science, but keeping the noise away so he can treat every kick the same is vitally important. It’s fair to say the process served him well for the rest of the season. He nailed his two field goal attempts in that first game and proceeded to produce a statistically historic season for NFL placekickers. He set a league record by starting his NFL ca- reer with 35 successful field goal attempts, smashing the previous mark of 18. On Dec. 10 against the division rival Philadelphia Eagles, he became the first kicker in NFL history to make two field goals from 59 or more yards in the same game. When he nailed a first-quarter 60-yarder to give the ’Boys a 10-0 lead, Aubrey was kicking the ball from the top tip of the Cowboys star logo on the 50-yard line. The way the ball sailed through the posts suggested it would’ve been good from almost 70 yards. It was quite the mind-bending sight. Aubrey finished the season with the highest completion percentage (94.7%) and the most field goals made (36) in the NFL, earning him first team All-Pro honors along- side superstars such as Lamar Jackson and Christian McCaffrey. Of course, when it comes to discussions of the most important players on the field, the placekicker rarely gets included. But that doesn’t mean it’s a position that can’t have a major impact on the game plan. “When the Cowboys are playing in- doors, they legit just need to get the ball to the 50-yard line to be in field goal range,” says 97.1 The Eagle radio host Kevin Turner, who also co-hosts the One Star Cowboys podcast. “It reminds me a Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images Aubrey greets fans after a win in late 2023. >> p8 Unfair Park from p4
