With all due respect to every single individual on DeMeco Ryans' Houston Texans coaching staff, you don't need years of experience coaching in the National Football League to know that to slow down the San Francisco 49ers offense, one of the first things you'll want to do is key your game plan around containing do-it-all running back Christian McCaffrey.
You do need that level of expertise, however, to put together such a game plan and implement it in such a way that your defense can execute it. And heading into this past Sunday's matchup, even with as much talent as there is on that side of the ball for the Houston Texans, McCaffrey is such a talented and dynamic player that there was no assurance that the Texans would have success keeping him bottled up.
That's exactly what the Texans did though, limiting McCaffrey to just 25 yards on 8 carries and 43 yards on 3 receptions in a 26-15 win over San Francisco. Across the board, those were season lows for CMC, who finished the game with under 100 total yards of offense for the first time all season.
So how did the Texans do it? Head coach DeMeco Ryans and edge rusher Danielle Hunter both explained what went into the effort.
The Texans path to slowing down Christian McCaffrey
"During the week, we practiced what we needed to do in the game; focused on the fundamentals, and we went out there and executed," Hunter explained, per Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 Houston. "The biggest thing on defense was controlling the edge. Covering on defense, covering the back-end, and allow the D-line to rush. We did that. We take pride in stopping the run first, and that's what we did."
Houston has been rock solid against the run all season long, holding opponents to under 4 yards per carry. Presently, the Texans and the Cleveland Browns are the only under .500 teams in the league who can make this claim. Holding McCaffrey to just 3.1 yards per rush is just the latest sign that this unit is among the best in the league.
“Overall, couldn’t be more proud defensively. Christian is a great player, phenomenal player. I talked about him all throughout the week and we knew we had to stop him. Run game, passing game, we knew he would be their highest-targeted guy, and we were able to hold him," Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said post game. "It was a collective effort from everyone, starting with the defensive line really disrupting the run game up front. I think we tackled really well."
This syncs up with what the Texans plan for McCaffrey was heading into the game. When discussing how to contain CMC before the game, safety Jalen Pitre said, "As a team, we would just want to swarm ‘em. Have all eleven running towards him. It’s hard to make eleven guys miss."
Even in defeat, McCaffrey did make NFL history on Sunday afternoon, becoming just the fifth running back ever to total at least 5,000 rushing yards and 5,000 receiving yards in their career, joining Lenny Moore, Marcus Allen, Marshall Faulk, and Tiki Barber in this prestigious club. But this spectacular achievement couldn't have come in a more unspectacular performance.