Listen to the full episode of Texans All-Access on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Hopefully Sunday does not come down to a field goal. But if it does, I want to tell you exactly how I am going to feel about it, and the answer is fine. Completely fine.
The first H-Town Blue game
Go back to the first time this team wore the H-Town Blue. Buffalo came to Houston on a Sunday in week five, and the Texans jumped on them early — C.J. Stroud faked the toss, had time, and dropped one deep to Nico Collins, who was leading the NFL in receiving yards at the time and looked every bit of it. Houston built a real lead and looked in complete command of the thing.
Then it flipped, the way these games do. Buffalo got the ground game going, hit a short route that turned into a long touchdown, and tied it late. I remember standing there thinking, I do not like where this is going. I did not like it at all.
The defense got a stop, Buffalo had to punt, and the Texans got just enough — a return, a catch, and suddenly Ka'imi Fairbairn was walking onto the field for a 59-yard attempt to win it. From the H. The new H, on the field for the first time, and he had to kick right off the logo.
There was not a person sitting down in that building. He hit it, and it was not high — it was just long and accurate, and it never left the middle. It might have been good from 70. That kick made him the franchise's all-time leading scorer's day complete, and it beat a team a lot of people had picked to go a long way.
He has been doing this for years
That was not the first time. In 2018 he won one in overtime at Indianapolis with a 37-yarder after the Colts tried to freeze him with a timeout. A week later he won another in overtime at home against Dallas from 36. He hit a 54-yarder in overtime to beat Tennessee. He has beaten Buffalo late twice now.
I do not mean old reliable, because he is not old. I mean all reliable. When the game is on his foot, the operation is calm, the ball goes where he is aiming, and everybody on that sideline already knows how it is going to end.
That is why he's Him
That is why the Texans want him around. It is also why he is one of my favorite Texans of all time — a tremendous golfer, apparently, a genuinely good man, and a kicker who has won this franchise more games than most people realize.
So stand up for that dude. And if Sunday gets tight, I am not going anywhere.
