FRISCO, Texas – With the new league year approaching, teams will finally be able to officially sign deals with free agents and process trades.
One of the Cowboys' own free agents is kicker Brandon Aubrey, who is a restricted free agent, and had the second-round, $5.76 million tender placed on him by Dallas on March 7. For Aubrey, the goal remains to get a long-term deal done to remain with the Cowboys.
"It's not something that I have control over as the term restricted applies there," Aubrey said at an Arlington Grand Prix event on Wednesday. "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."
Aubrey described the current status of his contract negotiations with the Cowboys as a "waiting pattern" while Dallas works towards deals with unrestricted internal and external free agents.
"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."
When that conversation does occur, there could be a new bar for Dallas to top. On Tuesday, the Texans and kicker Ka'imi Fairbarin agreed to terms on a two-year, $13 million extension according to multiple reports including from NFL.com.
That makes Fairbairn the new highest-paid kicker in the NFL at $6.5 million per year, topping Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker's $6.4 million previous record. For Aubrey, Fairbairn's deal is good news in his negotiations as he seeks to become the league's highest paid kicker.
"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."
At the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones said the team would like to make Aubrey the highest paid kicker in the league and keep him in Dallas long term.
"I think he's outstanding," Jones said. "Love his story, love the fact that the story is with the Cowboys. We feel good that what we are talking about is an appreciation of what he can do for us. That's a way of, not trying to negotiate with anything I might say here, but we've got a good offer on the table for him."
