The Houston Texans have a lot of work to do over the next week with free agency getting under way on Wednesday and having plenty of holes to fill, especially on defense.

The Texans addressed tight end on Tuesday, re-signing Dalton Schultz to a 3-year, $36 million contract extension. The action didn't slow down on Wednesday as reports indicate Houston is re-signing kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn to a surprising 3-year, $15.9 million deal.

According to KPRC's Aaron Wilson, this makes Fairbairn the fourth-highest paid kicker in the league.

On the surface, this looks like a pretty fair deal based on his performance last year. He made 27 field goals in 28 attempts during the regular season. He also recorded 21 extra points in 22 attempts. It's hard to complain about a kicker that only misses two kicks in the regular season.

But he did miss five games due to injury (quad) in 2023. There's no telling what his final numbers would have been had he played all 17 games. But we can make some assumptions based off his performance in 2022 when he played every game.

That season he made 29 field goals in 31 attempts while also making all his extra points. Over the last two seasons, he's been terrific from long range, making 11 out of 12 fifty-plus yard field goals.

Based on these numbers, I'm not surprised the Texans wanted to retain him. When Fairbairn was out, Matt Ammendola took his place and made 6 of 9 field goal attempts. He also missed both kicks from fifty-plus yards. The Texans got to experience life with a borderline NFL kicker, and they didn't love it.

So what's the problem?

I only have two issues with the signing. One, I don't think he's the fourth-best kicker in the NFL. And in general, paying $5 million a year for a kicker seems high. I would have liked to see them draft a kicker that they could pay on a rookie contract for the next several years. The Bengals drafted Evan McPherson in the 5th round of the 2021 NFL Draft and will only have to pay him $1 million this season.

He hasn't been quite as good as Fairbairn, but he also doesn't cost an extra $4 million a year. McPherson made every kick from under 50 yards in 2023. His 5 missed kicks all came from 50-plus yards. No great, but not bad.

My final and biggest concern with the contract has to be Fairbairn's clutch factor, or lack there of. He missed his two most important kicks of the season.

The first was an extra point against the Colts in the final game of the regular season. The winner of this game would cash their ticket to the postseason. CJ Stroud drove the Texans down the field late in the fourth quarter and scored a touchdown, putting the Texans on top. Fairbairn then misses the extra point, leaving Gardner Minshew with a shot to tie the game with a TD, and win it with an extra point.

Luckily for Houston, Minshew threw a pass just a little behind his running back on fourth down in the red zone. Which caused Indy to turn the ball over on downs. Texans win 23-19.

The second critical kick he missed was a 47-yard field goal against the Ravens in the divisional round of the playoffs. The kick cost the Texans a lot of momentum, as they would have gone into half-time with a 13-10 lead. I'm not saying that would have changed the outcome of the 34-10 loss. But it is another example of Fairbairn missing an important kick in a must-win game.

Hopefully Ka'imi has learned from those moments on the big stage. The Texans haven't played in many high stakes games over the last few years.

But moving forward, they should be in a lot of them. And they're going to need their kicker to make his kicks in the biggest of moments if they want to ascend to the next level and challenge teams like the Ravens, Chiefs, and Bills in the AFC.