UCLA's Ka'imi Fairbairn Could Turn Around Tough Season Against the Chargers

After a season where former UCLA kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn struggled to find consistency, a victory over the Los Angeles Chargers could rewrite his current narrative.

Dec 15, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Texans place kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn (15) makes a field goal against the Miami Dolphins in the second quarter at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images | Thomas Shea-Imagn Images

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 foundational piece for the Texans' special teams unit, having been retained under four different head coaches.

After a career season in 2023 where Fairbairn had a 96.3 field goal made percentage, he has struggled in 2024, only making 85.7 percent of his kicks. Perhaps this is the result of a quad injury that held Fairbairn out of five games in 2023, but he has not looked like the same confident kicker he's always been.

Perhaps Fairbairn is not as bad as he's appears as he matched a career high in field goal attempts at 42 instead of the 28 kicked in 2023 or the 31 kicked in 2022 when he had a 93.5 made percentage. It's to be determined but there's concern regarding his ability to outkick the Chargers on Saturday.

Fairbairn is set to duel against Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker, who has hit 92.9 percent of his 42 field goal attempts. The Chargers and the Texans possess extremely young, super-aggressive defenses that are going to cause havoc across the field, especially in the red zone since offenses have such a shorter amount of field to play with. That means it is likely whoever wins the field goal battle, will win the game.

Fairbairn has been concerning from close range and from a distance. Fairbairn has uncharacteristically missed two kicks from under 30 yards and has missed three kicks from beyond 50 yards.

To put that in perspective, Dicker has made every kick under 30 yards, missed one from the 40-49-yard range, and has missed only two from beyond 50 yards.

The good news is that Fairbairn is a perfect 15-16 between 30 and 49 yards. Fairbairn did sign an extension this past offseason but there's a good chance he's kicking for his Texans career on Saturday. Houston has had a lot of high expectations on them after a phenomenal rookie campaign by C.J Stroud. They have fallen short of them as of late.

Every error Houston commits will be heavily scrutinized. The good thing is that there is a flip side to that coin. If Fairbairn gets the job done, regardless of the result, he'll be guaranteed the job for 2025.

Ensure you follow on X (Twitter) @UCLAInsideronSI and @tcav30 and never miss another breaking news story again.

Please let us know your thoughts when you like our Facebook page WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE.