While it took a little longer than fans wanted, the Dallas Cowboys have finally come to terms on a new contract with kicker Brandon Aubrey, inking the three-time Pro Bowler and All-Pro to a four-year, $28 million extension, thus making him the highest-paid player in the league at his position and the first kicker in NFL history to average $7 million per season.
This is obviously great news for the Cowboys, as Aubrey has become one of the team's biggest offensive weapons. Touchdowns are always the preferred result of offensive drives, of course, but knowing that your kicker can connect on bombs of 50-plus and even 60-plus yards almost at will, the field gets a lot shorter.
As per usual, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport was one of the first to post the news on Monday morning, but it was his follow-up, which you can view below, that caught our attention.
Dallas has, in recent years, been proactive with getting deals done. Another example and a huge payday for the NFL’s best. https://t.co/afBWPhO1UU
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 20, 2026
Just in case you scrolled right past it, Rapoport posted, "Dallas has, in recent years, been proactive with getting deals done. Another example and a huge payday for the NFL’s best."
What's that now? The Cowboys have been proactive in getting deals done? As one can imagine, fans of America's Team—and certainly plenty of haters as well—have had a field day with their responses to the post, as Jerry Jones has taken his sweet time getting a lot of the team's high-profile deals done. And in one very infamous instance, of course, there was no deal done at all.
Jerry Jones has certainly not been proactive in getting certain deals done for the Dallas Cowboys
For starters, there's the matter of this new contract for Aubrey, who became a restricted free agent this offseason, as he's put in three years of service time. The Cowboys certainly weren't proactive here, as instead of getting a deal done before free agency began, they slapped the $5.767 million second-round tender on him.
As such, he had the right to negotiate with other teams, and if one of those clubs had given the 31-year-old an offer sheet, the Cowboys could have matched it. And if they declined, they'd receive a second-round pick from the club that signed him.
The deadline for teams to do so recently lapsed, which made getting this deal done easier, but Dallas could have conceivably lost him. It's easy to understand why Jones took this route, but it certainly doesn't fall into the "proactive" category when you think about it.
As for some of the others, you've got Dak Prescott, who was slapped with the franchise tag ahead of the 2020 season and was then hit with a second tag in 2021 before signing his four-year, $160 million contract a day later. Two tags is proactive? Okay, sure.
Then, there's CeeDee Lamb, who sat out all of training camp and missed the entire preseason ahead of the 2024 campaign before finally receiving a four-year, $136 million deal, a deal that Jones publicly said he had "no urgency" in getting done before ultimately giving in.
Even now, George Pickens is set to play the 2026 season on the franchise tag, as no long-term deal has been reached. That may change in the coming months, of course, but the hesitancy is all too familiar.
And then, of course, you've got Micah Parsons, whose contract situation obviously got so ugly that Jones shipped him to the Green Bay Packers last August. Oh, but at least Jake Ferguson got a new contract about a month before that, and DaRon Bland and Tyler Smith got their new deals shortly after, so perhaps that's the "proactive" nature to which Rapaport is referring.
Again, at the end of the day, the Aubrey deal is great news for Cowboys fans. But let's not pretend Jerry Jones isn't still Jerry Jones, okay?
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