There’s a reason NFL fans have a love-hate relationship with kickers: a missed field goal or extra point in a crucial moment can define a team’s season, and conversely, kickers rarely get the recognition they deserve when they perform well for their team.
The Dallas Cowboys know this all too well. They usually prefer to find diamonds in the rough and rarely spend draft capital on the position. Brandon Aubrey, who signed with the Cowboys after a stellar 2022 season in the UFL, is living proof of this.
After one season, Aubrey is already a top-five kicker in the game. His 36 field goal attempts led the league and he set an NFL record by making 35 consecutive field goals to start his career. Aubrey is already starting to climb the ranks of the all-time Cowboys’ greatest, but he still has a long way to go before he breaks into the top five.
It’s hard to measure a kicker’s success outside of their career statistics, but field goals made isn’t the only useful measure. A kicker’s accuracy, which wasn’t prominent before the 2000s, is just as important (if not more so) than field goals made.
Additionally, Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections show that a kicker was one of the best in his field for an extended period of time. Individual honors always take precedence when creating an all-time list, but playoff and team success are also taken into consideration when selecting the top five.
It was a choice between Cunningham and Nick Folk. Cunningham ended up making more field goals than Folk, 75, which ranks him fifth in team history. Cunningham’s 79.0% field goal percentage is atypical for a kicker from the 1990s generation and ranks sixth best in Cowboys history.
Unfortunately for Cunningham, the Cowboys began their post-dynasty transition when he signed as an undrafted free agent in 1997. That season, he established himself as one of the best kickers in the game. He made an NFL-leading 34 field goals, was second in the league with a 91.9% conversion rate and was named first-team All-Pro.
Unfortunately, Maher will likely be remembered for his four missed extra-point attempts in the Cowboys’ win over the Buccaneers in the 2022 playoffs. It was an epic collapse, but Maher arguably deserves to be recognized as a top-five kicker in team history.
Maher spent three seasons with Dallas in 2018, 2019 and 2022. Despite his short tenure, he ranks fourth in franchise history with 78 field goal attempts and second with 19 field goals of 50 yards or more. Only Dan Bailey made more with 27, in his seven seasons with the Cowboys. Had he not failed in the playoffs, Maher likely would have broken Bailey’s record.
The Nebraska native also ranks second on the Cowboys’ roster in touchbacks, eighth in extra points made and seventh in field goal percentage. His playoff slump shouldn’t obscure the fact that Maher is one of the best kickers in Cowboys history.
Boniol became Dallas’ starting kicker in the mid-1990s and was sensational when Dallas won Super Bowl XXX. That season, Boniol led the league in field goal percentage at 96.4% and was second in extra point percentage.
In the Super Bowl, Boniol made two field goals to help the Cowboys take a 13-0 lead over the Steelers.
In Cowboys history, Boniol ranks third in field goals made and his seven field goals made in a single game is a franchise record. He also ranks third in field goal percentage and seventh in extra points made.
Septien was a 10th-round draft pick by the New Orleans Saints and spent nine seasons as the Cowboys’ starting kicker, making him one of the longest-tenured kickers in franchise history and ranking first with 388 made extra points, 112 more than the next-place player.
Only Dan Bailey has made more field goals in a Cowboys uniform than Septien. He never led the league in scoring, but he did lead the league in extra points twice. Septien was an All-Pro in 1981 and led the NFL with 27 field goals made.
What cemented his status as the greatest Cowboys player of all time was the fact that he won a Super Bowl as a rookie in 1977, the second of the Tom Landry era.
Though Bailey’s momentum faded towards the end of his tenure with the Cowboys, he was arguably the best kicker in the sport during his five years there. In seven seasons, Bailey attempted 278 extra points and missed just two, including a perfect 56-for-56 in 2015, which led the league in the category.
Bailey, an undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma State, is the Cowboys’ all-time leader in field goals made with 186, including 27 field goals of 50 yards or more.
Additionally, he will hold the franchise’s longest field goal mark streak until he is replaced by Brandon Aubrey in 2023, and his field goal percentage of 88.2% is the best in franchise history among kickers who played at least one season with Dallas, including an NFL-leading 93.8% in 2015, his only year of selection to the Pro Bowl.
Rank
player
Years with the Cowboys
scored a field goal
1.
Dan Bailey
2011 to 2017
186
2.
Rafael Septien
1978 to 1986
182
3.
Chris Boniol
1994 to 1996
81
Four.
Brett Maher
2018, 2019, 2022
78
Five.
Richie Cunningham
1997 to 1999
75
