Brandon Aubrey’s kicking streak rivals the NFL's greatest — even Justin Tucker

• An unprecedented start: Aubrey has made 16 out of 16 field goals from 50-plus yards. When we compare this to Tucker’s best stretches, Tucker made 12 and 11 kicks from 50-plus yards, respectively. And no kicker since 2013 has hit 16 straight field goals from 50-plus yards, let alone seven from 55 or more yards.

• A deep dive into the data: Based on the expected outcome for his 50 field-goal attempts, Aubrey would have been projected to make 40.75 if he performed like an average NFL kicker. By hitting 48, he surpassed expectations by 7.25 field goals.

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Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It was Jan. 16, 2023, when the Dallas Cowboys played against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round of the 2022 NFL playoffs. Everyone watching knew it might be the final NFL game for Tom Brady, widely regarded as the greatest quarterback of all time. What we didn’t realize was that this game would also ignite the career of another player who is now on track to become one of the best ever at his position.

Many might remember that the Cowboys' win was overshadowed by kicker Brett Maher — who had hit more than 90% of his field goals and 94% of his extra points during the 2022 regular season — missing his first four extra points.

Maher eventually kicked a successful extra point after the Cowboys' fifth and final touchdown, and he also connected on both of his field goals in the ensuing divisional-round game against the San Francisco 49ers (though he did miss another extra point). But at that point, it was clear that the Cowboys would search for another kicker for the 2023 season.

The Cowboys decided to go out of the box, as they neither drafted their new kicker nor settled for a veteran from another team. Instead, they signed former soccer player Brandon Aubrey, who had only a short stint in the USFL as an American football placekicker.

More than a year later, the Cowboys certainly don’t regret their decision.

The numbers speak for themselves: Aubrey has made 48 of his 50 field goal attempts, including a perfect 16-of-16 from 50-plus yards. His official box score lists 49 attempts, but for this article, we’re counting his 66-yarder against the Cleveland Browns in Week 1, which was unfortunately nullified due to a false start. The kick had plenty of distance and would have tied Justin Tucker’s NFL record for the longest successful field goal.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at Aubrey’s career so far and see how he stacks up against some of the great kickers in recent years.

The chart below displays the field-goal performance of all kickers since 2023, comparing their success rates to the expected outcomes based on kick distance and weather conditions at the time of each attempt.

Despite playing half of his games in a dome, Aubrey has still often been asked to make fairly hard kicks due to the high number of long-range attempts. Most notably, the data shows that no other kicker has been more successful relative to expectations based on the conditions and distances of their kicks.

It's no surprise to anyone who's watched Aubrey over the past 12 months that he's been exceptional, but we want to take this analysis a step further. Rather than just comparing him to other kickers since 2023, we’ll measure Aubrey’s 50 career field-goal attempts against a tougher competition: the best 50-kick stretches of every NFL kicker since 2013.

In other words, we’re letting Aubrey compete against the absolute peak performance of every kicker over the last decade. While Aubrey has only 50 career attempts, we’re focusing on the best 50-attempt runs for other kickers, often captured between two misses. So how does Aubrey compare when matched up against the cherry-picked, elite stretches from the league’s best kickers?

Based on the expected outcome for his 50 field-goal attempts, Aubrey would have been projected to make 40.75 if he performed like an average NFL kicker. By hitting 48, he surpassed expectations by 7.25 field goals.

To put that in perspective, I dove into the data to find any other kicker with a similar stretch, where they scored seven or more field goals over expectation within 50 consecutive attempts. Unsurprisingly, only two such stretches exist, both belonging to Justin Tucker.

Tucker had an even more remarkable run beginning in 2015 and extending into the 2016 season, when he made 48 out of 50 kicks on a stretch of slightly tougher attempts, largely because many of his kicks were made in difficult weather conditions.

The next best stretch of any kicker not named Justin Tucker came from Graham Gano, who hit 6.51 field goals more than expected over a 50-attempt stretch that started in 2020.

his means that while Aubrey’s performance isn’t entirely unprecedented, it’s telling that only Justin Tucker — the league's best kicker for an entire decade — has had a better stretch, and even then, only once in his long career. No other kicker has come close.

Aubrey’s performance is even more impressive, considering he remains perfect from 50-plus and 40-plus yards. Ironically, his only two misses came on short kicks in a blowout against the Washington Commanders in Week 18 last season.

So far, Aubrey has made 16 out of 16 field goals from 50-plus yards. When we compare this to Tucker’s best stretches, Tucker made 12 and 11 kicks from 50-plus yards, respectively. And no kicker since 2013 has hit 16 straight field goals from 50-plus yards, let alone seven from 55 or more yards.

Aubrey has also made 24 out of 24 field goals from 40-plus yards. The only other kicker to accomplish this was Justin Tucker during his peak stretch that began in 2015. Even here, Aubrey stands out, as Tucker only needed to hit 12 field goals from 50-plus yards during that stretch, while Aubrey has already made 16 from that distance.

In summary, while Brandon Aubrey still has a long way to go to match the long-term consistency of the NFL's best kickers, we can confidently say that the start of his career surpasses the absolute peak of every other kicker in the past decade—except, arguably, the greatest kicker of all time, Justin Tucker.

When factoring in both his consistency and his ability to nail the longest field goals in NFL history, Aubrey’s performance thus far may be completely unprecedented.

This makes him a great asset for the Dallas Cowboys, and that’s without even considering what he can do on kickoffs.