Yesterday afternoon, the Texans hired 49ers defensive coordinator, DeMeco Ryans as their new head coach.
It wasn’t a total surprise as the chatter over the last few weeks signaled that it would happen.
Ryans has roots with the team. Houston selected him with the 33rd overall pick in the second round of the 2006 NFL Draft, and he rewarded them with immediate dividends.
During his career in Houston (2006-11), Ryans was named AP Defensive Rookie of the Year and PFWA Rookie of the Year in 2006, first-team All-Pro in 2007 and was a Pro Bowler in 2007 and 2009. The former Alabama All-American went on to play in the NFL for 10 years, the first six with the Texans and the final four with the Eagles. Ryans was a dominant force for the former, and he still holds the team record for the most tackles by a rookie (156) and currently ranks as the second-leading tackler in franchise history (636).
DeMeco then spent his entire young coaching career with San Francisco.
He first served as the 49ers’ defensive quality control coach, then the team’s inside linebackers coach before being elevated to defensive coordinator after Robert Saleh left in 2021 to become the head coach of the Jets.
Under Ryans, the defensive became an elite unit, unleashing some of the best players in the game today such as Pro Bowlers Joey Bosa, Fred Warner and Talanoa Hufanga. He also crafted them from the third-ranked defense to the number one overall unit in the NFL this past season.
That’s coaching.
Now Ryans gets his shot at leading a team, something all coaches dream about.
But the team he’s taking over the reins for places him in a very unusual, and uncomfortable position.
Firstly, Ryans returns to the team he once sued after being injured while playing there.
In 2016, he sued the team, the turf company, the stadium management company and Harris County, which owns the stadium, claiming the injury was “due to the dangerous condition of the field.”
“The Achilles injury at NRG Stadium prematurely ended DeMeco’s noteworthy NFL career,” read the lawsuit. “But for the NRG Stadium field, DeMeco would have, in reasonable probability, remained in the league for another five years.”
But even more significantly, Ryans is walking into a situating under a heated microscope for the way it has treated its last three head coaches, all of whom are Black.
Over the last three seasons, the team named Romeo Crennel, David Culley and Lovie Smith as head coaches.
With no real talent on the roster, dysfunctional team management and a general lack of support, all three did the best they could but were all ultimately fired.
This raised a firestorm of reactions, and rightfully so for the team has no direction and blatantly hired three Black head coaches essentially as seatholders to navigate the roughest times.
Now the Texans have hired its fourth Black head coach in a row.
For Ryans, it’s an appointment he rightfully deserves.
For the Texans, they get one of the hottest names in the market to return home and infuse pride and leadership into a team that desperately needs it.
It’s a win for both parties.
But as great a move as it is for both, it’s one rife with risks and sensitivity for both.
For DeMeco Ryans, as it is for other Black coaches, he couldn’t turn it down as Black coaches seldom receive another chance at the top jobs in the NFL. Just ask Byron Leftwich who, after turning the Jaguars down, never received a whiff of another head coaching job and was fired last month by Tampa.
In addition, Ryans hails from the defensive side of the ball and the league has trended toward offensive-minded coaches in the last few years.
Lastly, Ryans is the latest Black head coaching hire for the Texans, a team that succumbed to the pressure felt by teams last season to hire a Black head coach and reluctantly hired Lovie Smith, only to add him to the growing list of Black coaches they humiliated. Although DeMeco’s hiring feels different and more promising, it can’t camouflage the reality of what transpired over the last three seasons.
As for the Texans, while they bring back one of its greatest players, it does so under the reality of what the team has done to its last three Black coaches. While they gave DeMeco a six-year deal, if they do what they did to Culley and Smith, the league and fans will rightfully erupt.
If that happens, the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton and every other Black civil rights leader and media outlet should be on the same flight to Houston.
But with the second-overall pick that should be used to select a franchise quarterback (CJ Stroud), and a proven leader like DeMeco Ryans on the sidelines, the Black cloud (literally) draped over Houston should start to recede unless the Texans mess it all up again.
We’ll keep that ticket on standby.
