UCLA’s Ka’imi Fairbairn could turn around a difficult season against the Chargers

Houston Texans kicker and former UCLA Bruin Ka’imi Fairbairn is preparing for the biggest game of his life. The nine-year NFL veteran has been a key piece of the Texans’ special teams unit, having been retained under four different head coaches.

After a career season in 2023 in which Fairbairn had a field goal percentage of 96.3, he has struggled in 2024, making just 85.7 percent of his shots. Perhaps this is the result of a quadriceps injury that kept Fairbairn out of five games in 2023, but he hasn’t looked like the same confident kicker he’s always been.

Maybe Fairbairn isn’t as bad as he seems, as he tied a career-high in field goal attempts of 42 instead of the 28 kicked in 2023 or the 31 kicked in 2022, when he had a percentage of 93.5. It remains to be determined, but there is concern about their ability to beat the Chargers on Saturday..

Fairbairn will face Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker, who has made 92.9 percent of his 42 field goal attempts. The chargers and the Texans possess extremely young and super aggressive defenses that will wreak havoc all over the field, especially in the red zone, as offenses have a shorter amount of field to play on. That means whoever wins the field goal battle is likely to win the game.