Texans at the halfway mark

[dadmg]

I'm quite impressed with how we've performed to this point in the year. Our early schedule had a really rough patch that had me worried from the moment it was announced in the preseason and we battled through most of it without Andre and a good portion without Mario and are now sitting at 5-3 with a much easier schedule the rest of the way. I'm still quite saddened that we won't have Mario for the playoff run (both for him missing his first shot at the playoffs and for the damper it puts on our chances) but, given the super-short off-season, I wasn't sure if playing this well was going to be possible for us.

This also is an ideal thread to point out that, for the first time in my memory of visiting the site, the Texans are now in the top 5 in Football Outsiders main stat, DVOA a stat that adjusts for strength of opponent. Before this year, we'd usually peak somewhere around 11 or 12 and end up around 14-18 by year's end. This week we move up from 8-5, with the 7th ranked offense, 11th ranked defense and 8th ranked special teams. We've ranked much higher in their offensive ratings before, but not even during Capers best years with Glenn/Sharper/Walker/Payne did our D rank above 15.