HOUSTON – The Texans restructured contracts for kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn and defensive end Jerry Hughes for salary-cap purposes, according to league sources.
Fairbairn, who restructured his contract last year, was due a $3.65 million base salary in the final year of his original four-year, $17.673 million contract with a $5.666 million salary-cap figure. He’s now making the same amount of money with a simple conversion of base salary into a signing bonus. His new base salary is now $1.08 million and his salary-cap figure is down to $4.058 million with three voidable years added for accounting purposes. He received a $9,145 offseason workout bonus.
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A year ago, Fairbairn’s $3.45 million base salary was converted into a $2.415 million signing bonus with a new base salary of $1.035 million that lowered his original salary cap figure of $4.3 million to $3.042 for a net cap savings of roughly $1.25 million.
Fairbairn has made 11 of 12 field goals this season and 9 of 9 extra points. He connected on 29 of 31 field goals last season and made all 24 extra points. The former Lou Groza award winner from UCLA has made 159 of 185 career field goals, converting 85.9 percent of his career kicks, and 194 of 210 extra points.
With Hughes’ contract,the Texans converted $2.677 million of his original $4 million base salary into a signing bonus, lowering base salary to $1.165 million guaranteed this year. His new salary cap figure is $4.114 million, down from a previous $6.256 million. The Texans added voidable years from 2024 to 2027 for proration purposes of $10 million annually. That’s in addition to $5.5 million in total guarantees from contract last year. He was paid a $500,000 roster bonus the third day of league year, and has $29,411 in per game active roster bonuses, up to $500,000.
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com.