Although he wouldn't earn the nickname 'Mufasa' until he was reaching the tail end of his playing career with the Philadelphia Eagles, the qualities that earned DeMeco Ryans such a nickname were on display long before he was wrapping up his playing days in the City of Brotherly Love.
Dating back to when he was a three-star recruit out of Bessemer, Alabama, DeMeco Ryans has always carried himself with a quiet confidence that permeated the soul of every locker rooms he resided in. Unlike many of his peers, Ryans wasn't self-promoting. He let his play on the field do the talking, and for years, it spoke volumes.
Instead, Ryans used a combination of wisdom, hard-work, gravitas and dependability to stand out, and that combination of attributes allowed his teammates -- like Jordan Hicks, who because he was taken under the wing of DeMeco Ryans as a rookie, was given the nickname 'Simba' -- or coaches to do things that wouldn't ordinarily be able to do.
Take for example Texans linebackers coach, Bill Davis, who was the defensive coordinator in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2015. During a 2023 interview, Davis explained how the complexity of his game plans -- like relaying two different calls with multiple fronts and shifts in to Ryans, who was then relied upon to identify the formation, watch for shifts or motions, and then get his teammates lined up properly -- was wholly dependant on having a linebacker who could handle so much of the burden.
"I look back at some of my game plans. I wouldn't even think about doing that right now," Davis told Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com. "But it was because I had DeMeco that I could."
Ryans' experience at linebacker, often being tasked with being the defensive play-caller on the field, coupled with the intrinsic leadership qualities of a legendary cartoon lion who was the longtime king of the pride lands, have prepared him for a head coaching career that many of Ryans' mentors saw coming even before he did.
"I always felt like he would make a really good football coach because of the way he prepared for and played the game," San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh said of Ryans.
"He really was passionate about coaching and loved football and once he decided to do that, it was about halfway through the year that we realized he wasn't going to be at quality control very long," Kyle Shanahan added.
Now, as the Texans are on the eve of the biggest game in franchise history, Ryans expanded on how his experience as a linebacker prepared him to become a successful head coach who this season became one of just a handful of head coaches with at least 30 wins and three postseason appearances in his first three seasons coaching.
“As you play the linebacker position, I think the thing, for me, that helps you in coaching is as a linebacker, you're responsible for more than one thing," Ryans explained this week. "As a head coach, you have more than one thing on your plate all the time. Linebackers, of course, you have to step up, and you have to play the run game. You have to know the front. You have to know run fits... You have to be able to adjust and adapt on the fly in the run game and also, you're required to play in the passing game as well, which involves a lot of different details."
Thus far, Ryans has managed to push all of the right buttons, and just like Mufasa once brought prosperity to the pride lands from Pride Rock, the former linebacker is doing the same to a Houston Texans franchise that badly needed to be saved from darker days.