C. J. Stroud, DeMeco Ryans, and the Houston Texans’ Turnaround
How a first-year head coach and rookie quarterback led Texas’s second NFL franchise out of the AFC South basement and into the playoffs.
The Houston Texans were one franchise before January 31, 2023, and a completely different one after. Seldom can such a stunning transformation be traced so definitively. Plenty happened after that—the team drafted quarterback C. J. Stroud, who became an instant star; it notched a string of close wins; and, in the end, it went from being a 3–13–1 laughingstock to a tough, smart, and cohesive 10–7 playoff team.
But it was the hiring, nearly one year ago, of former Texans linebacker DeMeco Ryans as the franchise’s fifth head coach in four seasons that turned the page. The Texans had lost 31 of 39 games at the time, and after years of sellouts, apathy had replaced anger, along with a belief that the Texans front office would never get it right.
“The genesis of this turnaround was hiring DeMeco Ryans, even when most so-called experts thought he’d never return to such a downtrodden franchise,” Sean Pendergast, morning cohost on Houston’s SportsRadio 610 told me over email. “DeMeco wanted to be here, we all felt wanted again, and happiness reigned supreme.”
The other shoe dropped three months later when the Texans took Stroud with the second overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, then traded up for Alabama pass rusher Will Anderson Jr. with the number three pick. One of the pre-draft topics for sports talk shows had been whether a team would be better off selecting Stroud or Anderson. Houston general manager Nick Caserio got both.
Stroud has received more attention as a rookie (rightfully so, thanks to the importance of his position and his outstanding play), but Anderson has also been exactly the disruptive force on defense that the Texans hoped he’d be.
“I’ve never seen a more transformative night for a franchise than Draft night 2023 for the Texans,” Pendergast wrote. “That was the day it all changed. Two college studs, who both said they wanted to get picked by the Texans. Add in that, as it turns out, both guys are insanely good football players and wonderful young men. This is a team that is likable at every level.”
Ryans had given the Texans instant credibility, in part because Houston fans saw him as one of their own—the team’s starting linebacker for six seasons and a de facto team captain when the franchise made its first playoff appearance in 2011. During Ryans’s rookie training camp, in 2006, coaches had been immediately impressed by his understanding of defensive schemes and by the positive impact he had on his teammates’ performance. They came to trust him as a coach on the field and lauded his work ethic and communication skills.
