A look at some expectations for new Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans in 2023.
After Bill O’Brien was fired from the Houston Texans in 2020, the Texans have been in search for a long-term head coach.
The Texans hired David Culley in 2021, which was a major surprise to most people. Culley had plenty of NFL experience, but was never coveted by any other team to be their head coach. Culley led the Texans to four-wins and was fired after the season ended.
The team conducted another head coaching search the following year in 2022, and ended up with Lovie Smith as their next head coach, who was the Texans defensive coordinator the year prior.
Despite having a better team in 2022, the Texans won only three games under Lovie Smith, which led to his firing after the season ended. The Texans team as a whole did play hard for Smith every week and if the team had some more talent on the roster, they would’ve had a much better chance to close out several games they should have won.
The Texans entered this off-season knowing that they needed to hire someone young, with the potential to be in Houston for the long-term, and not another one and done head coach.
The head coaching job in Houston may not have been appealing to most of the top head coach candidates in recent years due to the lack of talent on the roster, along with the Deshaun Watson situation and the overall incompetence from the organization. That is not the case anymore in Houston.
Houston landed former Texans second-round pick DeMeco Ryans, who was the most coveted candidate in this off-season’s head coaching cycle. Ryans had this to say about the Texans hiring him:
“Being the head coach of the Houston Texans is my dream job and my family is thrilled to be back in H-Town. I have been around the game of football my entire life and I’ve always had a natural ability to lead others. I know what it takes to win and be successful in this league as both a player and coach.”
The Texans have been getting bashed by the media, along with the football world for years due to all of the extremely questionable decisions, and after the hiring of Ryans, it seems like that negativity surrounding the franchise has been slowly moving away.
After hearing how many past teammates, players, along with local and national media have been praising the Texans for the hiring of Ryans, it is clear that the franchise made the right decision.
Ryans has already won over the franchise and the fanbase, but he will have to convert that off-season excitement to wins. The Texans have had back to back drafts with an abundance of draft picks and cap space, meaning the team is set up to be significantly better this upcoming season than the past few seasons.
Growing pains are to be expected for any new head coach in the NFL, but Ryans is ready for his opportunity to build the Texans franchise from the ground up and should be a breath of fresh air for Texans fans.
The expectations for Ryans in year one as the Houston Texans head coach should be simple. The first expectation should be to show a clear vision for the future. The Texans may not be playoff contenders in 2023, but should take a significant jump from their three-total wins in 2022.
Another expectation for Ryans should be to put players in the right positions to succeed. Too many times throughout the last few years, we have seen the coaching staff not play to the players strengths and make extremely questionable decisions far too often.
The last expectation for Ryans heading into the 2023 season should be progression. The Texans have several new faces on offense, defense, special teams and a completely new coaching staff. Things may be bumpy at first, but if by the end of the 2023 season you can clearly see how the team progressed from the beginning to the end of the regular season, that will be huge for the team moving forward.
The Texans look to be on the right path to success with DeMeco Ryans as the franchise’s next head coach and should be getting back to playing meaningful football sooner rather than later.
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