Texans' DeMeco Ryans Denies Sideline Beef With OC Nick Caley

Ryans is the epitome of laid back on a mostly permanent basis, and so it comes as no real surprise that the Texans’ head coach insists that there was in fact, no in-game beef with Caley over play calls.

"I was talking to the official," Ryans insisted on Monday. "I was not yelling at anybody on our sideline, any coaches or any players. I'm too cool for that."

Despite the ice-cool denial from coach Ryans, a defensive guy rubbing up against a hugely struggling offensive coordinator does have plenty of notable history down through the years.

In truth, it's not hard to follow the trail of evidence that's only leading to potential friction and discord boiling up deep within the Texans’ inner workings.

For now, at least, Ryans had seemingly no idea how comically ironic he was actually being when he simply pointed the finger of blame at the officials who took charge of the game on Sunday.

"I think during that snap, we got on the ball and we went tempo, and the refs held our offense from continuing to run our play, and the refs said that we were substituting, which we were not substituting," Ryans explained the context for spouting off.

"No one on our sideline got off the sideline or moved. So, they didn't allow us to run our tempo offense. They held the huddle, so that's who I was talking to, the official, and making sure that we were able to run our offense the proper way."

Lest we forget that the Texans were just starting to build up a little head of steam early in the 4th quarter, and that's when Ryans had his apparent spat with the officials. Heck, it's not like we don't believe him; we just needed some collaborative evidence to help prove his case.

"Every week, if we have any issues, anything that arise from that standpoint of how the game was managed, we'll go through it with the league office and make sure we talk about that, " Ryans revealed. "Really, it's also about talking to the officials for the next game of things we want to do offensively. If we wanted to do that, just having awareness."

Certainly, and as far as the more rabid sceptics out there are concerned, Ryans might both be covering his own tracks– or just letting Caley off the hook– at least a little.

Either way, Ryans’ admission on Monday that the offense might go through some degree of changes to help aid the massively struggling quarterback C.J. Stroud, and that in fairness should be enough embarrassment for Caley to take.

After all, what the network cameras picked up on Sunday still required a spin story, and that's enough smoke in itself to tell you that all is not well in general terms. Things are unquestionably not going smoothly thus far, especially as Caley tries to introduce a more nuanced, but also complex playbook to his starting quarterback.

Stroud's continued struggles need no further explanation or spin, the CBS cameras very starkly caught everything in technicolor. All of which has only shone a light on seismic problems in Houston, the kind of which simply won't go away until Ryans and Caley can somehow chart a path out of some pretty choppy waters.

Therefore, blaming the officials will surely only prove to be a one-shot deal for coach Ryans.

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