One way to be happy about a dreary 3-5 mid-season NFL record is to take the glass-half-full approach, which seems to be what Houston Texans owner Bob McNair is doing.
He’s excited about the team’s current status within the horrible AFC South.
“We knew our offense was not going to be a high-powered offense, but we felt our defense would be one of the top-five defenses, and we’ve been far from that,” McNair said in an interview with KRIV and the Houston Chronicle (h/t ESPN). “The good news is that this is a new season, and we’re tied for first. The Colts have to play Denver next week, and we might be in first place by ourselves.”
Due to many things not meshing in Indianapolis, including a rash of terrible turnovers committed by Andrew Luck, they also sport a 3-5 record, leaving the door wide open for other teams to claim the division.
And, as McNair points out, the Colts face the undefeated Denver Broncos in Week 9. It sounds like he assumes will be an automatic loss for Indianapolis, and he may not be wrong.
Although, noting that the Texans season has been far from perfect, McNair lamented about the team’s recent blowout loss, 44-26, against the Miami Dolphins. He called it a “miserable” loss, noted everyone was “embarrassed” and that it was “pathetic.”
The team responded positively, though. Since then, the Texans beat the Tennessee Titans 20-6 in Week 8, and McNair is hopeful to continue with the team’s mini win streak with they return from their bye in Week 10.
“I think they’ve got it together in the last game, and if we keep playing defense the way we did in that last game, we’ll give everybody a hard time,” McNair said. “And that’s where we want to be.”
The Texans defense will most definitely be put to the test when it faces the undefeated 8-0 Cincinnati Bengals next week. The best-case scenario for Houston would be for Indianapolis to lose to Denver and the 2-5 Jacksonville Jaguars be defeated by the New York Jets this Sunday to keep their first place standing.