One Dallas Cowboys player, who has been on a remarkable journey to living out his NFL dream, is 28-year-old rookie Brandon Aubrey.
No one saw this coming, including Brandon Aubrey. And yet, when he met with a kicking specialist in North Texas, everything changed— opening a door for Aubrey and filling a need for the Dallas Cowboys.
The best kickers in football have both a strong leg and a strong mind.
“There’s a lot of athletes that are good enough to strike a ball and make kicks, but the mental side of kicking is something that people don’t pay enough attention to,” said Brian Egan. “It’s a rocky road sometimes and you’re not always going to be 100 percent successful.”
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Mental toughness through a career rocky road has re-shaped and prepared Brandon Aubrey for this moment.
After starring as a soccer player at Plano High School and Notre Dame, Aubrey was a 2017 Major League Soccer first-round draft pick by Toronto FC.
But the professional soccer dream was short-lived, as Aubrey was released by the organization after just one season.
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“That was an opportunity that I wasn’t prepared for mentally,” Aubrey said. “That was something I needed to work on and I needed to grow and I just didn’t have enough time to grow that while I was in the MLS and keep myself sticking around at the MLS level.”
After his MLS career’s abrupt end, Aubrey shifted his focus from kicking soccer balls to trying to kick a football and began looking for someone who might be able to help with the transition. That’s when he found One-On-One Kicking coach Brian Egan.
“It’s kind of random luck,” Aubrey said. “Just googled kicking coaches in the Dallas area and he was the first one who popped up. So I filled out his email form for a free lesson, called him and went to his camp that was meant for high school and middle school kickers trying to figure it out.”
“I remember when he first showed up, it was a little different,” Egan said. “I realized he was older pretty quickly. And I got to talking with him and he told me his background. The main thing I remember from that first day was his natural ability -- being a professional soccer player, understanding how to strike a ball.”
Aubrey’s ability to strike the ball, along with Egan’s coaching, resulted in a tryout with the USFL’s Birmingham Stallions.
After back-to-back all-pro seasons and USFL championship wins, he was offered a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys in the summer of 2023, before eventually winning the job as the starting kicker for America’s Team.
“The first time I stood behind him and felt the ball come off his foot, I definitely knew he was going to be okay, and that the talent was there,” said Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy. “I feel good about him. He has an arsenal of kicks which is important, and that shows his ability to control the football. I’ve been very impressed by him.”
He impressed the Cowboys coaches, and is now, off to a great start to his NFL career with a bright football future, powered by mental toughness created by his career’s rocky road.
“I’m kind of at a loss of words for it,” Aubrey said. “Try not to get too into the weeds with that thought process, but just focus on that next day to get ready for Sunday.”
“I think the sky is the limit,” Egan said. “He wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t good enough to be there. Now, it’s just about him doing his job day in and day out, and if he does that, he’ll be one of 32 in the world, and that’s pretty good.”
Brandon Aubrey actually arrived at that kicking workout with Brian Egan with a plastic football and plastic tee. He’s come a long way in three years, and after tonight’s game against San Francisco is now ____ for ___ on field goal attempts this season.
