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Brandon Aubrey #17 of the Dallas Cowboys

It would not be a Dallas Cowboys offseason if there were no contract drama to go around. While the George Pickens franchise tag gets most of the attention, there is of course another contract situation lingering for the Cowboys, too, involving arguably the best player in the league at his position: kicker Brandon Aubrey.

As things stand, Aubrey has been given a $5.7 million second-round tender from the team. That means he can either sign the contract with the Cowboys or get a bigger offer from another team–in which case, the Cowboys would get a second-round pick. And while there was some notion that Aubrey’s booming leg and accuracy–at a time when kicking is more important then ever– would make him enough of a weapon to warrant a contract offer from another team, it did not happen.

On Friday, the deadline for Aubrey to get another offer from an opposing team passed. There had been chatter about the Packers maybe coming in with a significant offer, but that never materialized. That gives the Cowboys more of an upper hand in moving forward with Aubrey–but that does not mean that the contract standoff is over.

Brandon Aubrey About $3 Million Apart From Cowboys

That’s because Aubrey has not yet signed the tender offer from the Cowboys. And he is not likely to do so, not as long as he is still seeking a major contract from the Cowboys this offseason. The Dallas Morning News reported that Aubrey wants a deal worth $10 million per year, and that the Cowboys’ final offer before putting forth the tender offer was just under $7 million per year.

That’s a pretty good gap. Aubrey was expected to get a record-setting deal with the Cowboys, and indeed, if he took what the Cowboys reportedly put on the table, he would have. The current high-water mark for the kicking market is Kai’imi Fairbairn of the Texans, at $6.5 million per year.

Aubrey has been an All-Pro in all three of his NFL seasons, and has made 112 of his 127 field-goal attempts (88.2%). He has also made 35 50-yard kicks in three seasons, in 44 attempts. He has missed only four extra points in 130 attempts.

Brandon Aubrey Spoke About Contract Issue

Aubrey spoke about his standoff with the Cowboys last month. There have been painfully few discussions on working out an agreement, which is par for the course with the Cowboys.

“It’s not something that I have control over as the term restricted applies there,” Aubrey said. “Obviously, Dallas is my home. I’d like to keep it that way, so it would be nice to get a long-term deal going. Just need to sit down and have that conversation. …

“There’s a lot of moving parts with the Cowboys at the moment. There’s players that aren’t restricted that they’ve got to sort through first, because with that restriction, movement is significantly more difficult. So they go through and there’s more important fires to put out. And then they can circle around when things calm down and talk to me.”

Cowboys Have All the Leverage

And that’s the issue. The other fires are out now, and the Cowboys and Aubrey have made no more progress on a new deal. The Cowboys have a lot more leverage than Aubrey, especially now with the deadline for another offer passing–all Aubrey can do is potentially hold out and/or issue a trade demand, but that will be tougher on him than on the team.

In the end, this probably winds up with Aubrey signing the $5.7 million deal.