There was no camp battle to write about because there was nothing to compete for. Aubrey walked into this offseason as a restricted free agent, got tendered, and then Dallas simply paid him rather than risk another team doing it first, tearing up the kicker pay scale in the process. He hit his only preseason field goal attempt clean, which is the least interesting thing about him and also exactly the point: with Aubrey there is rarely a competing storyline, just the same guy doing the same automatic thing he has done since he arrived.
What makes him worth the largest guarantee ever handed to a kicker isn't the short stuff, it's what happens once the ball crosses midfield. Nobody in NFL history has made more kicks from beyond 60 yards, and he owns the single-season record for makes from beyond 50 as well, an accomplishment he's now hit in back-to-back years. Most kickers treat that range as a coin flip they'd rather not take. Aubrey treats it as a possession-flipping weapon Dallas can call on from anywhere near midfield, which means drives that would end in a punt for other teams end in three points for his.
The catch is that leg strength doesn't create opportunities on its own — volume does, and volume is decided by an offense that has to actually stall in scoring range often enough to keep sending him out. Dallas was inconsistent enough finishing drives last year that it worked in Aubrey's favor, but he still finished behind two kickers who simply saw the ball more. If that offense scores more touchdowns instead of settling for kicks, or Aubrey's downfield accuracy dips back toward league-average the way it did on the shorter end of his range last season, the gap between him and the pack shrinks in a hurry.
Fairbairn is the one from that group worth measuring him against, because he's the guy who actually out-scored Aubrey doing something close to the opposite job. Houston's offense stalls constantly and takes whatever points it can get, so Fairbairn racks up attempts a healthier offense would never generate. Aubrey doesn't get gifted that kind of volume — he earns his points by converting kicks Fairbairn's leg couldn't reach in the first place. Given a choice between the guy who benefits from his offense's dysfunction and the guy whose talent alone extends his team's range, the talent is the safer bet long-term, even in a year where the volume kicker edges him on the scoreboard.
