The Texans’ Blowout of the Ravens Was DeMeco Ryans’ Finest Hour

Two full seasons plus five games into his head coaching career, it is unarguable that DeMeco Ryans is a bright, young coach with a very promising future. After all, he (along with C.J. Stroud) is on a short list of head coaching career-quarterback combinations to win their division and a playoff game in their first two seasons together. 

After an 0-3 start where the Texans might be 3-0 if they were even average on offense (NOTE: They were horrible on offense, so average would have been a massive upgrade.), Ryans has steadied the ship and delivered two knockout wins over inferior opponents, a 26-0 shutout of the Titans two weeks ago, and Sunday’s 44-10 annIhilation of the Ravens.  

Ryans has had several good to great moments as a head coach, and like anybody in sports, he’s had some games or moments on which he would love a redo. I think Sunday’s win over the Ravens, though, was his finest hour, his greatest lead-up week and subsequent Sunday of his head coaching career. Here’s why:

They team came in focused on the task at hand

I’ll preface this bullet point by saying that, first and foremost, the Texans needed to win Sunday, by any score. An ugly 10-7 win gets you to 2-3 and keeps math somewhat on your side for making a run back to the postseason. However, we knew style points, particularly on offense, would indicate that the Texans are “doing what good teams do.” In other words, the Ravens, missing a half dozen Pro Bowlers, were wounded, so FINISH THEM. That game Sunday was never close. Ryans had his team treating those Ravens with a level of focus reserved for Lamar Jackson and Kyle Hamilton. His team played like they had no idea na injury report existed. Great job!  

They kept their foot on the gas, and killed something that was killable

Continuing my thoughts off the previous paragraph, it hasn’t always been this way. In fact, up until the last two weeks, oftentimes the Texans failed to blow out their opponents under Ryans. In his first two seasons, 14 of Ryans’ 20 regular seaosn wins were by one score or less. For contrast, just 6 of Bill O’Brien’s first 20 regular season wins were by one score or less. Ryans’ teams have had a fantastic survival instinct, but not a great killer instinct. That was not the case on Sunday. They mercy killed the Ravens by halftime. That’s the biggest thing I hope carries over from this game, the killer instinct.

Delegating works! 

For the second straight game, DeMeco Ryans delegated play calling duties on defense to defensive coordinator Matt Burke. While the level of competition is certainly a fair caveat to raise, it’s hard to believe the defense could perform much better in those two games. They gave up a total of 10 points in those two games, and the Texans have been practically perfect on defense. DeMeco being able to see the defense thrive with someone else calling plays frees him up to lend his expertise and defensive mind to rookie offensive coordinator Nick Caley. This is a logical evolution for great coaches, pulling themselves away from tactical stuff to allow themselves to focus on strategy and acute areas of concern. This has been a really good couple weeks for DeMeco Ryans’ professional growth. 

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