Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has never been afraid to play hardball. Now, with one of the most unique contract standoffs in NFL history unfolding in Dallas, Jones seems to be doing exactly that. But the man at the center of it all, placekicker Brandon Aubrey, is making himself heard, too.

Both sides agree on one thing: Aubrey should be the highest-paid kicker in the NFL. But the problem is the number. Dallas reportedly offered Aubrey a deal surpassing Harrison Butker’s $6.4 million-per-year benchmark, a record set when the Kansas City Chiefs locked him in ahead of the 2024 season. Aubrey’s case should’ve been a handshake deal as well. Instead, his agent, Todd France, came back with a big number, effectively pausing the negotiations.

“The Cowboys did not offer Aubrey $7.5 million or even $7 million. But it was more than Butker,” Cowboys insider Clarence Hill Jr. wrote on X. “Aubrey’s agent, Todd France, countered with a $10 million annual offer and shut down negotiations until getting the bus at the combine on Wednesday.”

“The Cowboys don’t plan to up their offer and are comfortable placing the second-round tender on him, which could result in a restricted free agency deal of $5.5-$5.8 million and take their chances on getting a second-round pick if he signs elsewhere,” Hill added.

With the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis serving as the backdrop, JJ has made his stance crystal clear. But it’s a cold and calculated move. Under that tender, if another team signs Aubrey and Dallas declines to match, they walk away with a second-round pick. But is that a form of compensation the Cowboys could live with?

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Brandon Aubrey has been a centerpiece for Dallas. In the 2025 season alone, he posted an 85.7% field goal accuracy, along with 97.9% extra-point accuracy. What’s more, of all the points Dallas scored last season, 155 came from Brandon’s legs alone. That kind of production screams big money. And Dallas seems to be playing it safe, at least for now.

Cowboys EVP Stephen Jones tried to soften the optics, acknowledging the protracted nature of the contract talks. Although he made it clear that both sides hadn’t reached an agreement yet.

“We’ve been in talks with Aubrey [since] before the season started,” Stephen Jones said. “It’s been a journey, but we haven’t been able to get to a point where we can all agree, so it hasn’t gotten done, but we’d love to get him done.”

The math makes the Cowboys’ position understandable. A $10 million-per-year kicker would be unprecedented territory, essentially double what most elite specialists earn in this league. Jerry Jones seems to be betting that no team will pay that number and that the second-round tender is insurance enough.

But while analysts and insiders debate what number Aubrey could fetch, the star himself kicked back at all the rumors swirling around his contract.

Brandon Aubrey fires back

Amid the media firestorm, Brandon Aubrey weighed in with a single word on Instagram under a 105.3 The Fan post recapping the salary speculation: “Fake.”

Short, sharp, and loaded. In decades of NFL contract standoffs, rarely does the player himself walk into the room and flip the table over. But Brandon wasn’t alone. His wife, Jenn Aubrey, doubled down on a separate post with an equally blunt: “False.”

Jenn was the reason Aubrey originally chose football. So, when she stepped into the public arena to refute a report, it wasn’t a PR move; it was a household that had had enough. Together, the two posts sent a unified message: whatever numbers are circulating, they aren’t accurate, according to the Aubreys.

This matters for reasons that go beyond the social media chatter. Contract talks are notoriously shrouded in half-truths and strategic leaks, with agents, teams, and insiders each spinning their own narratives. But Aubrey’s one-word rebuttal chips away at the credibility of the leak itself. It also resets how the public frames this negotiation going forward.

There’s a broader cultural shift at play here, too. Modern NFL stars are no longer content to let their agents and front offices wage information wars while they stay silent. From Patrick Mahomes to Lamar Jackson, the elite players of this era have learned that controlling your own narrative is as important as anything you do on the field.

Aubrey, a former professional soccer player who reinvented himself as an NFL kicker, has always defied conventional labels. It’s fitting that when the story got away from him, he didn’t call a presser, he typed just one word and let it land.

The clock is ticking toward March 11, when free agency opens. Whether Brandon Aubrey ends up signed, tendered, or surprisingly on the market, one thing is clear: the kicker position in the NFL will never look the same after this negotiation concludes. As for Jerry Jones, he probably intends to control every move until it does.