The Houston Texans’ Ka'imi Fairbairn topped the kicker market this offseason, inking a two-year, $13 million deal. Unless the Dallas Cowboys drag their feet, he shouldn’t hold that title long.
Brandon Aubrey should reset the market at some point, but with Dallas using the restricted free-agent tender on the kicker -- the second-round tender nets him a $5.767 million placeholder -- there has been no rush. At an Arlington Grand Prix event on Wednesday, Aubrey said he is in a “waiting pattern” as the Cowboys deal with free agency.
"It's not something that I have control over as the term restricted applies there," Aubrey said, via the team’s official website. "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."
At this point, with the restricted tag in place, Aubrey knows he’s not the priority.
"There's a lot of moving parts with the Cowboys at the moment," Aubrey said. "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."
Aubrey is aiming to blow the top off the market. Perhaps Aubrey won’t reset the kicker market to the level that Tyler Linderbaum shot the moon for centers, but it would be somewhat surprising if it’s only an incremental build on Fairbairn's $6.5 million-per-year deal.
The Texans kicker's new deal doesn't help Aubrey's case. The Houston booter's numbers aren't that far behind, a point the Cowboys are sure to make as they try to reel in the price. However, Fairbairn is coming off a career year and isn't asked to consistently bomb away from 60-plus yards like Aubrey. But the Cowboys kicker views any payday for his brethren as a win.
"That's always a positive," Aubrey said. "Anytime the market goes up as a whole, every kicker makes money. When he signs a new record contract, that makes the guy whose signing number 32 contract, whether that's the rookie contract, I'd say anybody that's signing a new deal, the prices go up."
The price for the best kicker in the NFL, who owns a massive leg that puts the Cowboys in scoring position from the moment they hit the star in the center of owner Jerry Jones’ field, is already high.