The NFL offseason rolled along on Wednesday, with the league business year officially beginning in the late afternoon. With that, the two day legal tampering period ended, and all of those deals agreed to over that time (well, all but one, shout out to Maxx Crosby!) converted from handshake to ink.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Houston Texans certainly have had their fair share of activity thus far in the early going of the offseason. They\u2019ve had a few trades, including a trade for a starting running back. They\u2019ve brought in some new players, including a possible starter at right tackle or left guard. Perhaps the most \u201cTexan\u201d thing they\u2019ve done, though, is take care of several of their own players in house.<\/p>\n
Last week, the team tacked on a season to the contracts of defensive end Danielle Hunter and tight end Dalton Schultz. Both will be with the team through 2027 under these extended deals. On Tuesday, though, they got an extension done that flew a little more under these radar than Hunter\u2019s and Schultz\u2019s, extending kicker Ka\u2019imi Fairibairn\u2019s deal by two years for a total of $13 million.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s dig into this decision, with three thoughts:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fairbairn becomes the highest paid kicker in the NFL<\/p>\n
At $6.5 million per year in new money, Kairbairn becomes the highest paid kicker in the league. Like every position, that will probably change in short order, as salaries are constantly on the rise, but for now, Fairbairn holds the title. If I had to guess, Brandon Aubrey and the Cowboys may eventually agree to a deal that exceeds Fairbairn\u2019s in average annual value. Regardless, Fairbairn is more than deserving, having kicked 44 field goals in the 2025 season, leading the league, even while missing two games due to injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fairbairn\u2019s most important kick came in the playoff loss to New England<\/p>\n
If there was an Achilles heel to Fairbairn\u2019s game, throughout the course of his nearly decade long career, it was an inconsistency in kicking outdoors, particularly in adverse weather conditions. A missed extra point in the playoff loss to Kansas City two seasons ago comes to mind. However, in the Texans\u2019 final game of this past season, the loss to the Patriots, Fairbairn boomed a clutch 51 yard field goal in the second half of the 28-16 loss. It\u2019s just one kick, but proving that Fairbairn had that \u201cclub in his bag\u201d was comforting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fairbairn is the last vestige of the pre-Caserio era<\/p>\n
With right tackle Tytus Howard traded to the Browns a week ago, Fairbairn is the only player remaining from the pre-Nick Caserio era (in other words, pre-2021). In fact, Fairbairn was technically selected three GM\u2019s prior to Caserio, as Rick Smith signed Fairbairn as an undrafted free agent in 2016. Fairbairn was then witness to (including interims) four more GM\u2019s and five more head coaches. If anyone could write a book about the crazy swings of the Texans franchise over the last decade, it would be Fairbairn. Or Jon Weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL offseason rolled along on Wednesday, with the league business year officially beginning in the late afternoon.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,347,221,253,2368,1030,6,901,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-807976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-homepage","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-texans","12":"tag-houstontexans","13":"tag-kaimi-fairbairn","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-nick-caserio","16":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116215672030806943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}