He started the season out like he was the best K in the NFL. He finished the season as an avg K at best. I wonder if he was injured or just going through a slump. There are bigger fish to fry this off-season, but Fairbarin should definitely be on the hot seat.
Knowing the road to the AFC Championship is going to go through Buffalo, KC or Baltimore for the foreseeable future we MUST have a kicker who can kick in the cold, snow and wind.
[Baltimore Banner] Justin Tucker accused of inappropriate sexual behavior by six massage therapists don't get this guy
I think it was a combo of fatigue and messed up mechanics due to having to attempt so many long range kicks. He had 14 attempts at 50+ yards this season, his previous high was 6. Having to kick at full juice with accuracy so many times is bound to take its toll. By the KC game he couldn't even get his kicks to the end zone.
Tony Fritsch was da GOAT. But I guess he no longer exists in Houston lore. He might be the best Tennesse kicker so far.
I hear before games announcers talking about how well kickers were doing in warmups. Between pre-game warmups, and practice, I'm sure that extra 8 in-game attempts is a drop in the bucket of total season-long 50+ yard attempts. I don't think that's what the issue was. My personal opinion is that Fairbairn is a good kicker, and he had some bad moments towards the end of the season. I still trust him and I'd rather not go through the pain of finding another kicker that is better than him, which can VERY easily result in finding many kickers significantly worse. I would much prefer the team focus on the other areas of need. Also, I'm not sure what Fairbairn's contract situation is, but the team doesn't have much in the way of cap space and carrying dead money for a kicker would feel quite silly when we have a barely functional offensive line. Edit: Went and checked Spotrac. Unless I'm reading it wrong, it would be something like $7MM in dead cap if we cut Fairbairn this season.
I'll again mention: you all are suffering from recency bias/small sample size. No kicker is perfect. Literally. They're going to miss kicks. And while not excusing Fairbarin, this offense last season did him no favors - it expected Stroud to bail them out of bad situations, and when that inevitably failed, they passed the baton to Fairbarin. 45-yard kicks became 55-yard kicks, etc. If I started to list problems with the 2024 Texans, I'm not sure "kicker" would make the top 10; may not even crack top 15. Hell, he's not even the worst kicker on the team - that's the punter, who had a bad season.
