DeMeco Ryans on Texans Defense, Eight Sacks On Josh Allen And Colts Prep | All Access

DeMeco Ryans on Texans Defense, Eight Sacks On Josh Allen And Colts Prep | All Access

in studio with us now, head coach Demetica Ryan. Coach, how’s it going? Hey, going great, man. Good to see you guys. Good to see you. It’s been a few days since the Texans have played and it’s Colts week. It’s a huge game coming up, but let’s review a little bit about what happened against Buffalo. Coach, everything came together and on a short week, you had to be really proud of that. Yeah, really proud of the preparation. That’s why the our approach to the game, I thought our guys handled it like outstanding. They they attacked the days the right way. They took care of their bodies the right way. I mean guys were healthy guys felt I felt the energy I felt like guys were ready for that moment and that’s what I’m most proud of the preparation right and then because when you prepare the right way then you can go out and play well and that’s what the guys did they played really well played complimentary football even though although everything didn’t go great for us in that game that that’s football the es and flows ups and downs of the game but for us to come out you know we get the lead and we kind of we kind of held it there for as long as we needed to. We made the plays in the critical times we needed to make. You know, when bad things happened like the the big return they got on us like again nobody went in the tank like nobody’s head down all come like and offense came back out responded with a great two-minute drive. And that’s the signs of a really good team. And that’s what I want to continue to see us doing. Playing complimentary uplifting each other no matter what happens in the game. Let’s just finish it the right way. Coach, one of the things that stands out so much and stood out the other night to me, I think you can watch Denil and Will and the guys rush and you know, guys are physically impressive. There’s no no question about that, but it felt like the other night there was such a high level of intelligence in how you went about rushing, Josh, because it wasn’t like, “Hey, let’s just go.” Everybody seemed to have a spot where they were going. They knew not to go to certain spots and they were rushing really intelligently together. How did that all come to be in such a short amount of time against a guy that has made a living getting out of the pocket and making plays and doing those things? How intelligent was the pass rush to get after him? Yeah, when you see a guy like Josh Allen has gut so many defenses taken off whether it’s up the A gap or outside like he’s put it on film so many times that he can escape the pocket and it’s something we’ve been harping on as a defense defensive line like man we have to do a much better job of rushing with awareness, understanding where the quarterback is, not losing our eyesight and our vision as we rush. Don’t bury our head. Let’s make sure we’re keeping our hands up. Let’s let’s rush with extension so we can come off blocks and make those plays. But the rush, I always talk about four guys rushing together. So with those sacks where our ends were able to make a lot of plays, you got to look at the two guys inside. I thought they did a much better job, probably our best job this year of really collapsing the pocket, not allowing Josh to really truly step up through the A and B gaps. And that’s when our guys won their one-on- ones on the edge. Denil, Will, um, Barnett, those guys won their 101 ones on the edge. And not just won them, but they closed. They finished on the quarterback and it’s a beautiful job of four guys rushing together. That’s what it looks like. How do you coach that though? Because in a basketball setup, you might say you’re going to get your points, just play within the offense, right? With defense, you’re going to get your sacks, just play within what we’re trying to do, right? That’s very true. Everybody just has to first and foremost like I thought it was a scheme that we don’t see much. Like most of the times we’re getting a lot of chips. Like there are a lot of like seven man protection schemes. So, they really put a lot on their quarterback’s play to really, all right, guys are going to have one-on-one matchups, and they really were hoping that he could escape the pocket and get past guys, but and he’s such a big guy, such a tough tackle. So, not only, you know, were they able to get to him, but to get him down, that’s that’s a really tough tackle. And it was impressive the way those guys got him down, but it’s everybody did what exactly they needed to do. Coach Rod did a really good job. He does a great job of coordinating the games and the stunts that we run. And I thought this was the best game that we had of guys being really in sync whether we are sending in inside and wrapping our tackles outside. It was even on our last play of the game, the fourth down play, Sheldon Rankings is wrapping around outside. He’s coming free to the quarterback and it forced Josh to where he couldn’t step through and finish his throw. He had to let it go sooner than he wanted to and that was why Kaitlin got the pick. Along those lines, coach, when it was it was evident, at least I thought it was that Josh was getting frustrated. He was getting frustrated with couldn’t get out of there. He couldn’t run around and get away from everything. Did you guys Did you guys sense that? And did the guys sense that like, okay, kind of like a wounded animal like, man, we got to pounce right now. Did you guys sense because you we talked about Davis calm, doesn’t get rattled, you don’t see it a lot of emotion from him. Josh, you could kind of see it was a little spurts, but you could see where he was getting really frustrated with what was happening. Did you kind of feel like that was the time that all right, he’s frustrated, we kind of got him where we wanted. Yeah, we definitely saw the frustration on his face, but you still had to remain disciplined. This game was all about, you know, remaining disciplined. And the reason the guys were able to rush that way, I don’t think enough gets said about the coverage piece. our our our backend guys, they covered exceptionally well, knowing that they would have to cover a little bit longer than they normally have to cover. Those guys, they were sticky in coverage. There was nowhere for the quarterback to go, forcing him to, okay, run around. Let’s buy some time, buy some time, allowing the D line to get the extra time needed. Miles said something when he was in here I thought was really interesting. He talked about two plays and we kind of like, what does he mean by that? He’s like, there’s the first play and then when he starts to scramble, that’s the second play. And I thought it was really interesting way of looking at it that you’re actually facing two plays at once. Yeah, you are. And that’s where I talk about you have to cover them twice. Like it’s he’s going to hit his back foot. Okay, I cover my guy. We’re on him. The ball isn’t coming out. Now the second play starts. And now those are the plays that get you really tired. Tired as well as a defense. How about defending against the run, coach? because he had that long run, James Cook, but other than that, you had it under control as the game wore on. A lot better against the ground game. Yeah, they got us. We were in a short yardage call there. You know, guys were thinking sneak and he bounced out. We got to still We got to get that guy on the ground. Don’t want to see a a run go over that long on us. We got to close and finish. But for the most part, uh I thought, you know, we held James Cook in check. I mean, he’s a really talented player. like seeing him up close and like he’s he’s faster, more physical than you think. He’s a really good player and our guys did a really nice job of making the plays we needed to make in a run game. And I think two plays in the run game was there in the fourth quarter. It’s third and two. Tommy slips through and makes a huge stop, right, to get it to fourth and one. And then the next play, Kamari comes up and he sets the edge on their fullback and Rankings beats his guy and makes that play on fourth. Those are two of the biggest plays in a game and that was us making those plays in a run game to help us get a fourth down stop. Yeah, I think Kamari saw him in the locker room because I seen that play and I said that’s the fullback Manning. That dude’s 260 where he was going to beat me. I just I love that corner taking on a split blocker and he just took him off. It was just it was I don’t know that he gets enough credit. He gets TFLs. Kamari in the run game has just been uh incredible. Speaking of run game, so to speak, our social team put out a graphic, I think it was today, and on top it had eight and on the bottom it had zero. Eight sacks on the defense, but zero allowed by the offensive line, only four pressures. And Mark and I talked about it. You know, we’re I don’t know 72, 96 hours removed from the game. But really, nobody has kind of talked about the offensive line, which might be the best news of all that. Nobody’s talking about the offensive line because they gave up no sacks. Um, the run game in particular early on, they did a really good job. Coach, what do you think about the offensive line, how they played? That is good. Nobody’s talking about them. So, that’s good for them to be quiet. Yeah, they uh they did a really good job in in protection. Again, I thought we handled, you know, some of they had a lot of different pressures and a lot of different funky looks that we had to communicate on. I thought the guys did a a really nice job of that. they handle the stunts well and Davis did a really good job of getting the football out on time and not holding on to it. So, collective effort, but O line, you know, can we continue to build off of what they did, you know, in a short week, getting a new lineup in there for the most part. Thought we did well run gamewise. We had some good runs. We had some lanes. I think we can we have even more to gain in the run game. Some lanes are there. We can finish some blocks even better. And we’ll need that this week for sure. Coach, during the winning streak, Davis had the early pick against Jacksonville. Other than that, no turnovers from him. That was huge. Ball security for the entire offense, a big factor. Yeah, it’s been great for us. I mean, like you said, that one pick, which, you know, they got us on a play, but man, overall, us the way we protected the football over the past few weeks has been really great. Uh, we got to continue that and we’ve been taking it away. You always want to be plus in that turnover margin. And that’s where we are to take it away three times defensively and then not give it up offensive. Like that is always for me the key to winning the game. Get the offense on the short field. Whether we’re in field goal range or we can go punch it in for a touchdown at least. Can we get points off of those turnovers as well? And our offense been doing a great job protecting. We got to keep that going. I hear takeaway and turnover and I just immediately think of Kaylin. Coach, I do think that Aziz got to get on the Jug’s gun and catch a few, but that’s okay. We we’ll get there with Aziz. But he made a nice play to tip it to Kalin and he has interception at the end. The play that he made on the on the fumble where Shakir’s got the ball and he knocks it away and punches it away. I mean, that one’s incredible. But you and I talked about this after the game, what we what you saw in Kaylin when he was coming out of USC. What have you seen from year one to year two and the growth in Caitlin? has just I seen his I seen a step up in just his communication like he really understands the defense but how he’s really running the show communicating in the back end that’s he’s taken a huge step there and that’s what you have to have at that safety position that leadership most of the time you’re looking for veteran guys who can come in but no Kaylin you can do it man just communicate you know what to do you know how to do it get the other guys on the same page playing together and man he that play you said like that was a beautiful play by That was a would have been an explosive by them. But for him to come, he he’s improved his tackling. Like that’s one area I’ve seen a huge jump as well. For him to come up and think about punching the ball as he’s wrapping the tackle, not just blindly going for the ball, but he’s securing going forward. That’s textbook of how we teach it. Get the ball out there. I mean, what a huge game by the kid. And I just see even more big games by him. What we saw at USC was him taking the football away. And when you do it in college, it carry over it carries over into the NFL and he’s continued to be a ball hawk. Coach, offense in general. You talked about the offensive line, but it’s getting a little bit better bit by bit. You’re seeing some progress here. When CJ went out, he was six for 10 in that Denver game. The week before, he played really well against San Francisco. Davis comes in, plays well. What are you seeing improvement wise out of this offense in general? Yeah, I think for the most part, we’re not having the negative plays. Like that’s the one thing you have to you have to mitigate the negative plays, right? We’ve done that. Like we’ve been gaining positive yards on first down, right? We’ve been able to win on some third down. So, we’re getting there. The red zone has gotten better. We’ve been able to get in the end zone the past couple weeks. So, we’re taking those steps as an offense to put us in position to win games, right? And they gave the team enough points against Buffalo to go win. And that’s that’s what it’s going to take. Whatever we need, you know, I always I’m always trying to get at least 21. Yeah, that gives us a chance, right? But they’ve done a good job, I say overall in the red zone, just running the more, you know, the scheme plays with the run, getting Woody on the outside more uh with some of our perimeter runs, done a good job pulling our tackles, just a lot of variety in the run game. Uh, I like that about our offense and I think it just keeps defenses on their toes. Keeps them out of balance, out of sync. They don’t know really what’s coming. So, the more and more we continue to thrive on what we’re doing well and the more we lean into what we’re doing well. I mean, with our play action pass game, we got to run the ball well to open it up. So, Nico and Higgins, they’ve been a great job as well. I mean, Higgins, he doesn’t get talked about much, but I think as a rookie, like he’s come on in our offense, he’s been the guy who’s really lightening it up, making some big plays, explosive plays on early downs, and in the red zone, he’s been the guy who’s getting in for us. So, we got to lean on him a little bit more as well. Sure. Coach, on Friday, I know you don’t reside in the same world that Mark and I do, where we’re watching everything and reading everything that’s on Twitter and TV and radio. I’m sure Omar probably gave you a few things, but I’m sure you weren’t up Friday going, “Hey, what did Stephen A. Smith say about me? What did this?” Well, you couldn’t miss it because it was all over the place talking about the defense and the performance and the win and hey, don’t forget about the Texans. Early in the season when we’re 0 and three and we would talk after tough losses and you would say, “You got to flush it.” Is this the kind of situation the same thing like, “Hey, we had a win, we celebrated it, now we got to flush it to make sure that we’re ready for the Colts.” Oh yeah, you have to. Everybody’s patting you on the back wherever you go. You’re so great. Oh yeah, it’s great. Father-in-law is like, “Oh, you’re the talk of the town.” And it’s like, “Oh, thank you. I got to keep moving.” Like, you can’t allow that, you know, which is great. I’m happy that, you know, people are fired up. A lot of people are saying, “Oh, this is the best game I our community is fired up. Our fan base is fired up about that game.” That’s what we want to do. Bring that excitement right to Houston. And it it’s here. and we love the support, but we also know there’s more ahead of us, right? We can’t hang our hats and just rest on one game. That’s not what it’s about. Great job of finding a way to win. Now, here we go in Indianapolis. Let’s go again. The more we continue to do that and not allow, you know, the positive stuff that we’re hearing to blow our heads up or walk around with the big heads like, oh, we arrived. No, we still got a ton of work to do. We still have improvements in all three phases where we can get better. And man, what a week that we can make those improvements right now going up to Indianapolis. Yes, we have the little matter of the Colts, coach. And you know how I feel about this team. Here we go. Last year at this point, we were done with the Colts series. This year, we’re just starting it. So, here we go. Playing Indianapolis on the road. And the Texans in your tenure, very close games. You’re three and one against them. I know it’s a brand new year, brand new situation. So, what about the 2025 Indianapolis Colts? Yeah, the thing that sticks out to me is that their offense is is operating very efficiently. They’ve been very explosive. Uh Pierce, I don’t think he gets talked about enough like he’s the down the field targets, the deep shots. Then you have the running game with Jonathan Taylor, he’s always been, you know, one of the top backs in our our league just for his explosiveness, his home run playmaking ability. And I think Daniel Jones is playing the best that he’s played like in his career. Shane has done a good job of pairing things down and he’s doing a great job of executing. The play action game is working for them. They stay out of third and long situations. They’re really in those manageable spots where if it’s close enough, they’re going for it on fourth down. So, I mean, they’re doing a good job offensively and switching it up. The defensive coordinator, I think they’ve added a lot more variety on their defense than what they’ve had in the past. So we’ll see a ton of different looks from Lou anarimo. Sorry there Lou. But he’s done a good job with the defense as well mixing up. They got the two corners now with Sharius Ward. They got Sauce Gardner. So they have some players on the outside. It’s going to be a tough matchup as always versus Indie. And one we’re always fired up for. It’s like you play guys in a division but Indie means a little bit more. There something about playing Indie. So, we’re fired up, you know, to be going up there against them and they’re they’re playing well. They’re the top team in our division right now and we’re on the hunt. So, we’re climbing as far as trying to be on the hunt and Indie is the team we’re after this week. Coach, I don’t know how much you’ve gotten into game prep being this early in the week, but what have you seen from them different with Sauce being part of their team? And you mentioned Ward, too, because Ward was out. So, they were playing two different guys. Now, they got Ward and they’ve got Sauce. How have things sort of changed with those two being in the lineup versus when they didn’t have them? Yeah, the biggest thing I think you know in any defensive coordinator when you get two corners of their caliber. Okay, now I can let’s lock up. Let’s lock up. Let’s get in a little bit more man coverage. So, they will they have shown to play more man coverage. That’s what Sauce has done a good job of. I’ve I had uh I’ve had Sharia in San Francisco. He’s a really good player, talented guy. Both are big big corners when you see them in person. both big long corners physical. So that’s the change up that you see more, not as much zone. Okay. Well, here we are playing them. And what is different about Jonathan Taylor as opposed to some of the other backs you’ve seen? You’ve done a good job. And Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey, I know they’re very different. And JK Dobbins, and we talked about Cook. What about Jonathan Taylor and what he specifically brings to the table? As I watch him, I’m just okay. They’re going to make this. Oh no. He breaks It’s like guys are there. guys are there to make plays and he just finds a way to slip through a block and slip through a tackle and continue to just run past the defense like he’s extremely fast. He’s physical. You talk about a contact balance when people are getting when backs get hit. Some backs easily fall to the ground. Taylor just has his knack and when he does get hit, he can stay up like his one his balance being on one leg even at a time. Like he just finds a way to continue to press forward and make plays. So I talk about Swarm all the time and who we are defensively like you cannot assume that one guy has him tackled. Like everybody has to come to the party. You have to show up and I always you have to finish him to the ground. If you didn’t finish him to the ground, it’s not good enough. He’s still going. So that will be the key this week. Coach, we’ve come from behind in a game this year against Jacksonville where we fell behind and then obviously roared back in the fourth quarter. We’ve had games where like Baltimore, we got out ahead and in this series the last couple of years we’ve landed the major haymaker early like we’ve landed the shot, you know, Tena deep and 23 up there. Um here landing a big blow early. How important is that? I know you got to play 60 minutes, but to be able to get, you know, in Rocky 4 when Rocky finally gets a shot on the Russians, like the Russians cut like who and it changed the fight. Obviously, it’s movie, but you get the point. How important is it to land that first shot on them? You know, it’s so important. I go back to your question. What’s different for them? And I think that’s what they’ve done this year, like in the first half of games, that’s what they’ve done. They’ve thrown those big hay makers and they’ve jumped out to huge leads in games, right? And when when they’re not doing that, that’s when the games have been closed and come down to the fourth quarter. So that’ll be huge for us. We got to come out. We got to strike first and we got to continue to strike because we know that’s what they trying to do and that’s what’s worked for them throughout this year. They’ve thrown that hay maker and that’s what allowed them to be in the spot they’re in with eight wins. Coach, this time of year we get the possible distraction of holidays and uh Yes. Yes. Yes. interfering with the game of football possibly, but I know you’re a family man and everything. So, how do you handle Thanksgiving with the team? Yeah, it’s uh it’s always tough, right? Because you’re f my focus is strictly on Indianapolis. The guys probably think I’m cring young guys, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. We But I understand, you know, Thanksgiving, how important of a holiday it is. The family time, everybody being around. Like, it’s truly a special time of year. One of my favorite holidays. just you see the joy, the smiles on everyone’s faces. So, I really enjoy it, but also understand like that’s for the family. I love you guys. Put me a little plate to the side. But we’re work. We’ll be working. I’ll try to keep our schedule as normal as possible. Our guys come in and work and then we’ll just cut our afternoon meetings to allow guys to go and have lunch with their families if that’s the case. Don’t eat too much, guys. Please don’t. Uh but understand, you know, we have a big one ahead of us and that mindset, our focus has to be on Indianapolis. We’re going to take a moment, of course, we always take a moment to be grateful things that we’re thankful for on Thursday. Really thankful for family, friends, and just the love that everybody’s shown us. But we also know our family’s going to be much more fired up and much more excited if we come out with a win on Sunday. That’s true. All right, the Emma Bank Ask Coach question of the week. So, you’re an Alabama alum. So, you have to invite one of the following Auburn alums to your Thanksgiving table, coach. Okay, so you have the choice of one of these four. Bo Jackson, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, Charles Barkley, Cam Newton. You have to pick one of those four Auburn alums to sit with your Bama family. But if you pick Cam, you have to wear one of his hats. Oh man, that would be sweet. Well, man, that’s a tough one. So many great guys. I’m going to roll with Bo Jackson. I’m going to roll with Bo just because Bo, he can sit with my family because he knows my family. We’re from the same hometown. He’s from Basmer. We actually both got inducted into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame together. Beautiful. Earlier this year in May and his family couldn’t be there. So he said, “Hey Mo, can I use your family?” and he said, “Family, can you stand up for me?” I said, “That’s great.” So, Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo’s a great guy, man. Bo’s a great guy. Uh he played football with my uncles in high school. So hometown guy, I’ll go with him. Absolutely outstanding, coach. Thanks a lot. Good luck to you.

Go inside the mind of Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans on Texans All Access. Ryans recaps the statement win over the Buffalo Bills, from the eight sack performance on Josh Allen to the complementary football between defense, offense and special teams. Hear him break down the pass rush plan, Calen Bullock’s three takeaways impact, Kamari Lassiter’s physicality in the run game, and how the offensive line kept Davis Mills clean all night. Then he flips the page to Week 13 and explains the challenge of defending Jonathan Taylor, explosive play action and a hot Colts offense. Perfect for Texans fans who love Xs and Os and real sideline perspective.

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