DeMeco Ryans Texans Week 9 All Access | Postgame Breakdown vs. 49ers

DeMeco Ryans Texans Week 9 All Access | Postgame Breakdown vs. 49ers

Joining us in studio, head coach Demo Ryan. Coach, congratulations. How’s it going? Going great. Feels good after a win. Feels good after a win. Well, let’s talk about it because the game starts, Texans have the ball and you go on the longest drive of the season timewise and play countwise. Didn’t get the big points, but that kind of set the tone that you could control things a bit. Yeah, that’s that’s the main thing we wanted to show. Of course, you want to finish with a touchdown there, but to really show that you have command and control of the game by being able to run the ball. Had a couple nice throws in there as well, just to methodically drive down the field. Nobody panic. Everybody, we were taking our time and just executing. Kaylee, get to your best play call that you feel is best in this situation. Not really pressing to go tempo or hurry up. We just wanted to take our time, put ourselves in the best position to be in position to go score. Coach, there’s one thing, it’s one thing, like you said, to be methodical. It’s another thing to look up at the scoreboard at one point and go, we have 31 minutes time of possession to their six. Like, you can dominate time of possession, but not quite like that. Did you realize that it was to that degree that you really had only had a handful of plays defensively and you had 31 minutes of time of possession without you? You don’t know the time. I kind of felt it because the defense was doing a good job of getting three and outs early on and you felt the long drives from the offense, but really to end the game and see that I think it we finished it with 41 minutes. That was that was that’s pretty impressive. That’s wild. We’ll talk more about the offense, but defensively, what was the key there? Because they had M. Jones who had won games for them. They have KD. They have McCaffrey. We talked about him last week. What was the key to stopping them? Yeah, the main key was McCaffrey, right? knowing that he would try to get a ton of touches. That’s been the guy that really was their catalyst for winning football games and keeping them in games. So, I think we did it early on by playing physical versus them. When they tried to run the football, we had a ton of guys at the ball playing physical versus McCaffrey. And then we knew when it came to the passing game and throwing it, we just needed to be sound and disciplined, be who we’re supposed to be, and allow our D line. We really wanted to rely on our fourman rush getting after the offensive line and our our guys did that. They caused havoc. They sped up the quarterback and our guys did a good job playing sound in coverage. Coach, when you get the 2615 lead, they’ve got to not drive the ball and they challenge Kamari. He comes up with the big pick at the one yard line. It feels like every time we watch Kamari, he’s doing something positive week in and week out. What have you seen from him in his second year? I’ve seen I’ve seen growth and I’ve seen consistency like when those deep passes are being thrown to his side. Typically, we’ve seen that from from Sting. And a lot of people don’t try Sting on the deep passes anymore. And now you go over to Kamari and you try to he’s improved so much with his technique, just being able to put a body on a receiver and also get his eyes up to go pinpoint the football and actually go up in what we call high pointing. Get your hands up high, attack the football. He’s done that now two times this year. once in Baltimore and again here uh versus the 49ers. So, it’s impressive to see when you put that on tape, teams aren’t going to try you as much not knowing really what’s going to happen. You’ve talked about Kamari’s practice ethic, right? How hard he practices. You always talk about Will. I was going to ask you who are the practice stars, but I guess all of them really, but that’s so important to have that kind of intensity during the week. Yeah, that’s Al Kamar. He’s locked in. He’s intent every single day of practice and walk through. is the same. Like he’s always the same guy. And when you take every rep as a meaningful rep, as a deliberate deliberate rep, you get in the game and you don’t have to make something up or you don’t have to panic when you’re at the at the moment of truth when it’s time to make a play. You don’t panic because you’ve been there before. You’ve practiced this multiple times throughout the week and you’re comfortable being in an uncomfortable position and you know you’re confident to go make the play. Coach, I don’t know if you do what I do after games. I always like to see the um Omar and his group send out postgame quotes from our guys, from you and a few of the key guys and CJ also from the opponent. And so I didn’t get to see the press conference because I was talking to you, but about four or five questions in Kyle Shannon was talk was asked about the Texans and this Texans defense, but just Texans in general. And he said, and I quote, “They kicked our ass.” When you’re a coach of a team that did that to another team, is that just a different feeling other than just winning the game that you see the coach acknowledge, yeah, they physically beat us up. They kicked our ass. That that’s always the start of it for us. That’s always the plan. As you go out, you want to impose your will, as I say, and that just goes to guys playing discipline and playing as physical as you can possibly play. And I felt that especially from the way Jaylen Petri was tackling. Uh the way Kamari was showing up t Aziz had a couple nice physical stops in there. You can feel that presence where we’re knocking guys back and that’s always the key on defense to impose your will. You got to knock guys back and uh and you got to swim the football and that’s what we did and it made it feel that way like we truly got after them. It was a game unto itself, but how much does it help that you had all that experience facing Kyle Shanahan in practice and and working for him all those years, coach? Not much. It makes it it makes it makes it even more nerve-wracking, honestly, because it’s I’ve seen so much. I’ve seen so many things, but never truly having a like game plan against Kyle. This was the first time like and he makes it difficult because he has such a variety of things and so many different motions and and especially when Juice is in the game, the fullback is in the game. It’s just he aligns all over the place. So, it it’s really hectic, right, trying to prepare for Kyle and what he’s able to do and their guys can handle a lot because they put a lot on their plate and they have a ton of nice plays, but our guys did a great job of just remaining disciplined. Yeah, you mentioned youth check. He they put him in the slot all the time. He’s a fullback. Play some fullback. He’s in the slot. He’s lining up wide. He’s all over the place. Yeah. He’s doing more receiver tight end things than he is doing true fullback things. But, you know, it can really it can really mess with defenders and mess with their eye, mess with your rules of, okay, what is is Oh, it’s a fullback. Okay. What adjustment do I make when the fullback aligns that receiver? Yeah. That makes it difficult. And guys have to really be keyed in on a game plan. I’m I’m proud of our guys for doing a good job of not panicking with all of the motions and shift. That’s what happens a lot when defenders panic. When guys move and they’re off just a hair, that’s when, you know, offenses are able to capitalize on that and make plays. But if you are sound and your eyes are in the right place, you can really defend anything. And then the guy in the back field, Christian McAffrey, with what he’s able to do, where he can line up and the different motions and shifts and different things. And yet it felt like he had the couple catches, you know, later in the game that got him some yards, but it felt like, coach, you wherever he went, he had a body, a body and a half on him. You’re physical against him in the run game. In your opinion, what was the biggest key to slowing him down and keeping him well under his numbers? Yeah, starting in the run game, I thought Will, Denil, those guys did a great job of setting the edges, knowing they were outside zone team and I talked about the cut back run uh throughout the week and our guy, our backers and Petri, they did a good job of just filling those cut back lanes. So, when we stopped it on the outside, there was really not a ton of space for him to cut back where he had made and gained a ton of yardage there. uh in the passing game. Thought Henry had some good coverage snaps on him and one where he was able to uh p uh break up the pass and also just we got loose there towards the end of the game where he caught a couple checkdowns. One went from over 20 yards where we can just improve our tackling there and be more urgent to finish the game. Well, with everything that was going right in the game, all of a sudden it’s a one-sore game somehow and you’re up eight. You needed a big drive to make it a two-score game and you got it. It was a field goal drive, but how important was that march for you? Oh, that that march was huge. It was huge. And when we needed it most, like that’s what we wanted to see our offense step up. When we needed it most, they stepped up, drove the field. What I loved about it, everybody was just even kill. Nobody got too high or too low. We made plays. We went back a few yards. It didn’t really matter. And that’s the resolve you have to have, right? on any given Sunday, whenever you’re playing, you have to have that resolve. And it goes back to my messages for the entire week was about just doing your job and it’s all about how we finish. We’ve been in some tight games. The games are of course they’re always close, but how have we finished? And we got we do a better job of finishing, which we did now that allowed us to be on the winning side. Coach, you’re inexperienced receivers. Is that the right way of saying it? No. Nico no Kirk, but you got to throw Braxton Barios in there amongst those guys as well, stepping up. Jared Wayne with a couple of catches. You know, your Cyclones seemingly caught everything thrown to them. Uh what are your thoughts about the way they showed up and played without Nico, without Christian being on the field? Yeah, they showed up prepared, ready for the moment, and they they showed up and they showed up big for us. You talk about third down conversions. Braxton had a couple huge ones. Uh Jaylen No, a couple huge plays as well. Uh CJ and the receivers, their their connection just on the pressure and finding the hot answers. I thought he did a really nice job of delivering the ball and the receivers being on the same page, running the proper route versus our hot answers to, you know, mitigate any of the the pressures and blitzes that we had. And again, the O line did a nice job as well protecting uh inside out, doing a good job not allowing CJ to get hit. And those guys caught it all. And I I really like the distribution. Like the ball went to whoever was open. Everybody was able to get a touch and all all those guys, they caught it really well. What about the ability to run the football? Because I know it all starts with that, coach. That’s what you want to see. Yeah, for sure. It starts up It starts with the run game always like you can run the ball. We were getting some nice, you know, five yard carries, six yard. It was some nice tough runs and that’s what it’s going to look like. It’s going to be grimy. It’s going to be tough. I thought the backs Chub and Woody thought they finished really nice in the runs and I thought our receivers tight ends again did a great job of blocking staying on guys. We can still get better uh with some of the runs but you know to run for over 100 yards is tough in this league and to be able to do that it was a collective effort and I’m proud of the way the guys they battled and they strained up front. Now having worked for the 49ers you know that they travel well with their fans and they had a bunch of fans in the building yesterday. It’s just going to happen. I called it battle red day in addition to repetit day. Why not? Well, a lot of Texans were wearing their red because they have the red jersey so they like it. But you tell me the offensive performance really helped in keeping things under control that way too. Just so the team wouldn’t get a rise and their fans, whoever was in the building, that kind of thing. Yeah, we didn’t allow that fan base to bother us, right? You know, they had they had a ton of fans in the building, right? you you quiet the fans by executing, by just having those long drives, making plays, making the plays we were supposed to make. That’s that’s how you quiet those fans and our offense did a good job of just not wavering, not allowing anything external to really affect what they were doing on the field. Coach, I want to ask you about Blake Fischer because he got a number of snaps, stepping in as the sixth offensive lineman, the tight end, whatever it might be. What’s the value that he’s given to you in that role? Yeah, the value of adding Blake as our extra offensive lineman really gives us a a stronger, stouter body at the end of the line of scrimmage, right? Where we got to go against some of these really good edge players, right, who are physical, do a great job knocking guys back. So it just it it finds it we find a good balance of allowing him to block some of those bigger defensive ends as opposed to always putting our tight ends in those positions who are kind of sometimes they get physically outmatched which rightfully so those guys are bigger but our tight ends when they’re asked to do it they are straining they are trying to finish with Blake has done a good job and I think Kayle’s done a good job of just mixing it up right from a strategy perspective when a big oh when a extra offensive lineman comes on the feel you got okay game plan wise what are you doing or is it all run are they mixing in passes you kind of keep play callers on their on their toes so to speak when you don’t know really what’s coming at you so us being able to throw out of the the uh jumbo package and also just being able to when we want to run the ball we can get big strong physical run the ball and really control the line of scrimmage coach what can you tell us about the kickoffs and how you want to improve there what do you want to see it’s tough to know because sometimes all We’ll give him the 35 yd line because we have confidence in the defense, but you tell me how you’re feeling about that. Yeah, kickoff wise, we have to improve our our coverage and that’s that’s escaping and getting off of blocks and also finishing. We’ve had multiple times on our kickoff coverage unit where we’ve had guys free to the ball and we’re not making a play. So, that’s where we just have to improve like how are we condensing the lanes? How are we getting off of blocks? And when that moment of truth, are you making a tackle or not? We just got to have more urgency to finish that and make the tackle. And that’s one of the plays that really gave them some life when they were able to right there before the end of half when we kicked it off. And we don’t get off blocks. We’re behind each other. We can clean that up and we can play much better there. One guy who’s done a good job in the kickoff game is British Brooks. He’s done a good job of showing up, making tackles, uh, playing physical. So, we just got to get more guys to the ball. Wait, will you show the British block in the team? It’s got to be in there, right, coach? You know, that’s my one of my favorite plays of the game. I mean, that’s Wow. Isn’t that the kind of thing, coach, that that fires guys up when they see that from from their guys? Like, yo, did you see what British just did? Not to a linebacker, not to a safety, but to a 300lb defensive tackle. Wow, man. What a I was just watching that play with our offense and I mean it was that was a beautiful play, right? It was uh for British, you know, fullback who’s much smaller guy. It’s all about angles and pad leverage. You want to play with low pass. That’s what British does on that play. And he really, man, he caught the defensive lineman. Got him off of both of his feet. He was joking that that was gonna be the only play you’d show the whole game. Honey, that might be it. That’ll make my meeting much shorter. This is how we all have to play. Coach listened to Mack after the game. He was asked about facing the defense and he had some nice things to say about the defense, but I felt like Mack caught on to something that maybe other teams haven’t or other people haven’t noticed. And because everybody when they talk about the defense, they want to talk about Will, they want to talk about Denil, but Mack made a mention of, hey, their inside guys are as good as it gets. You may not know them by name, but they’re as good as it gets. your interior guys, Tommy, Sheldon, Timmy, Mario, the guys that are playing inside. What are you seeing from them that’s given defenses some issues? Yeah, we have we we rotate those guys. So, we have a a good mixture of guys have different talent starting with Settle. He’s done a great job of just playing more stout at the line of scrimmage, playing physical, and you got Rankkins who is a penetrator. He’s explosive off the ball. So, it’s such a variety. and you have Tommy in there is it’s hard to trick Tommy on any of the plays that we get whether it’s screens or traps whams like Tommy is just the most consistent guy of being exactly where he needs to be. And then Rio is just like a wrecking ball in there. So it’s a it’s a healthy mix of guys, but they all they play hard, right? They play they play physical, right? And they they just relentless, right? Their rushing and passer those guys are relentless. They’ve been doing a better job of getting their hands up at the line of scrimmage. So it’s just really cool to see when your interior is playing really well, like it makes it tough to run the football. also passing the edge guys get a lot of the credit, but if we don’t have the pocket pressed back from our two interior rushers, like then there are no sacks to be made. So everything starts with those guys and they’ve done a great job. Coach Rod has done a great job with the entire D line. Yeah. All right. So you have the number one defense in the league in scoring and in yards per game allowed, coach. And now you face Denver and they like to run the ball. JK Dobbins is really good. They have RJ Harvey among others. So tell us about that Bronco ground game. It’s a bit different from San Francisco, different from when you stop Derrick Henry. What are you facing this week against Denver? Yeah, I mean Sean Payeyton is is variety in the run game, right? He’s going to mix it up a lot. Does been doing it for a long time calling. So we just again for our guys just remain at this. We understand they have two really good backs, right? Rookie back is doing a really great job. Explosive player run game and in the screen game. So we got to do a great job of tackling. Again, it’s going to be every week. If we go out, we tackle well, we get off of blocks, we finish, swarm to the football. That’s how you stop that run game. And then we put it on the young quarterback, right? Know he’s made a few plays, but we put it on him and we put it on our rush to get after him. Quarterback’s from Auburn. Uhoh. I mean, that that should get you going a little bit. I mean, does get me going. I mean, he finished at Oregon. That’s a technicality, but he really is an Auburn guy. Yeah. It’s kind of weird though because he played so much football in college and we were talking about him this morning. You play at Auburn, then you play at Oregon. These are two gigantic programs. So, by the time you come into the league, you’ve played a lot of football already in your life. I know it’s the NFL, but at least you have some experience coming in. He’s older than CJ, isn’t he? About a year and three/4ers older than CJ. And that’s what I’ve seen like the trend for guys who are staying a little bit longer in college and you’re getting that experience and you’re able to play a ton of football in college just banking those reps as a quarterback it truly helps them and that’s why I think you see guys like you know Bo Nicks come in he’s successful early on also Brock Pery he played a lot of ball at Iowa State he was able to come in and be productive because they’ve seen a lot of defense seen a lot of different things and that allows them to you know not get big eyed in the big moment. They can but they can play the game the right way from the quarterback position and that’s so to get better you got to get the reps and that’s what those guys have shown they’ve done well. Yeah. Coach Greg Olsen this week said something interesting and it it happened on the first drive of the game. He was he was talking about the new kickoff rules as it pertained to kicking field goals down inside like the low red zone that he thought that a strategy coaches would use going forward would be to skew the field goal because essentially you kick the field goal and then the other team runs it back out to the 30 or 35 yardd line. One pass and they’re in field goal range. So it kind of negates the field goal in some sense. A, I don’t know if that philosophy is, you know, he just thought that was going to be a strategy that coaches were going to have to face. B, you get that kind of situation on the first drive and you wanted to get points up on the board. Why was important at that point to make sure you got three up on the board at that point? Yeah, it’s to me it’s like you have to make sure you guys reap the benefit of having such a great drive. Like you want to Yeah, there’s a part of me. Yeah, you want to go right for but at the end of the day like let’s finish each drive with points. No matter how it looks, if we finish with points, and we finish a ton of our drives with points, yeah, we would love to get seven, love to get in the end zone on a lot of those. But to finish with points, it’s still a positive, right? It’s positive to see our entire sideline. It’s it just lifts the entire team to see, oh, we got something for the work that we put in. Yeah. Interesting. Coach Janice McNair gets inducted into the Ring of Honor this weekend. Very special. I know it’s halftime and the team’s undergoing a game, but thoughts on that, Mrs. McNair, co-founder of the franchise going up. Oh, that’s it’s an awesome moment for our franchise to see Miss Janice McNair get inducted to the Ring of Honor. You know, her and Bob McNair, you know, for them, you know, to be able to bring football back to Houston. That was a huge deal for the city of Houston to have our team have our own team back again. And she was a huge part of that. and she’s been really huge for our entire organization. Like just the you talk about somebody who supports our team, who’s fired up for our team. She always training camp practices. She’s always out at training camp. She always she always tells me she can come play linebacker if I need linebacker. So, it’s always fun talking to Miss Janice and the energy and the the love that she shows every single time. I’m so happy for her and that she’s able to get recognized and get into the ring of honor. It’s uh it’s a huge moment and I know she’ll it’s a proud moment that we’re all happy for her. Well, it’s legends weekend, too. And of course, you have all these former players coming back to watch you play and I know that’s got to be special to have them in the house as you play again. Always special when you get all the former players back to just show that, man, we’re still all in this together. Like once a Texan, you’re you’re always a Texan. So to see the guys back supporting the team, repping the team, I always am fired up for that moment to see a lot of former teammates back in the house and just for them just showing the love and support that they have for us and like, “Hey man, we got your back.” Like, “Keep it going. You’re doing a great job.” It’s always fun to see those guys. Okay. Well, you thought you were off the hook, but I got one more bank asked coach question of the week. And here it is because it’s Halloween week, coach. I knew was coming. I knew was coming. Snickers is a partner and I do think Snickers is the goat candy bar, but you but you leave them aside. Uh oh. You can pick him if you want, but MVP candy for Halloween and one that you would cut. Put on waiverss. You’re off. You’re out. All right. MVP candy. Man, took Snickers out of it. But you could pick them if you want. Yeah. Reese’s. Reese’s Reese’s. The go-to candy. One you can cut is the the candy corns. Oh no. Did I crush you, buddy? Oh, I’m sorry. Oh my gosh. Candy corn. Candy corn is polarizing because either hate hate them or love. It’s like cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. You either love it or hate it. I don’t know. I’m on the hat. But it’s all right, man. It’s good. It’s a free country. You can have your candy corn. Won’t slip you any Halloween. All right, coach. Thanks a lot. Good luck this week. Thank you guys. Enjoy.

Head Coach DeMeco Ryans joins Texans All Access after Houston’s dominant 26-15 win over the San Francisco 49ers.

Ryans recaps the Texans’ longest drive of the season, Kamari Lassiter’s key interception, the defense’s plan to stop Christian McCaffrey, and how young receivers stepped up without Nico Collins or Kirk Merritt.

He also talks about offensive rhythm, Nick Caley’s play calling, Blake Fisher’s sixth-lineman value, and looks ahead to the Broncos — plus, the Amegy Bank “Question of the Week.”

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 – Postgame Win Feelings
0:07 – Longest Drive of the Season
0:50 – Dominating Time of Possession
1:30 – Defensive Game Plan
2:17 – Kamari Lassiter’s Big Pick and Big Play Maker Energy
3:13 – Practice Intensity
3:56 – Kyle Shanahan’s Postgame Quote on Texans Defense
5:08 – Familiarity with Shanahan
5:55 – Shanahan’s Offensive Mind
6:45 – Containing McCaffrey
7:50 – Closing Drive for a Field Goal
8:50 – Young WRs Step Up
9:23 – Chemistry and Protection
10:00 – Establishing the Run
10:40 – Silencing 49ers Fans
11:29 – Blake Fisher’s Impact
12:15 – Nick Caley’s Play Calling
12:44 – Improving Kickoff Focus & Execution
13:36 – British Brooks’ Special Teams Impact
14:45 – Defensive Interior Dominance
16:24 – Scouting Denver’s Run Game
17:15 – Bo Nix’s College Experience
18:31 – Strategic Field Goal Decision
19:50 – Janice McNair Ring of Honor
20:58 – Legends Homecoming Weekend
21:36 – Amegy Bank Question of the Week

Subscribe: https://bit.ly/3UH7n0E

Tickets: https://www.houstontexans.com/tickets/