It takes a special coach to get the absolute best out of his players. Luckily for the Houston Texans, they have a guy in DeMeco Ryans who does just that. If they didn't, we wouldn't be talking about a three-win team in 2022 that is now in the divisional round of the playoffs.
Let's face it: this Houston Texans team isn't the most talented roster of the teams still alive in the playoffs. In fact, there are plenty of rosters of teams who didn't make it that are better on paper - the Texans just have the coaching side of things down.
Against the Cleveland Browns in the wild card round, Ryans coached one hell of a game. There is a video out now that has Ryans mic'd up for a moment that shows how good of a coach he really is. Before LB Christian Harris' pick-six, Ryans told Harris it would happen. He showed him video footage of something that had already happened and told Harris what to do, and the Texans walked away with a pick-six in that situation.
Ryans remembered something similar that happened in their first matchup against the Browns, where Harris was put in a bad position on the play against Flacco. He told Harris what he should have done, they worked, went over it countless times in practice, Ryans reminded him last week, and they executed.
That video right there shows why coaching is so important. Here's a former linebacker and a captain of the defense telling his linebacker how to fix what happened. It doesn't get much better than that. Harris had a career game against the Browns, where he finished with a career-high PFF grade of 91.
To make things even better about it all, too, Ryans intercepted Flacco as a player when he played for the Philadelphia Eagles, and Flacco was on the Baltimore Ravens, the team they will face this Saturday.
If this video, along with the improvements from last year to this year, does not show you how important coaching is in the NFL, I don't know what will. When the voters are voting for who will win the Coach of the Year Award, I just hope this is a video they have all seen. The people associated with the franchise knew Ryans would do this, though. I mean, J.J. Watt predicted it, for crying out loud.
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