If any non-Playoff storyline dominates the NFL news cycle each year throughout the month of January, it's the overactive coaching carousel which annually opens the door for a half dozen or so new head coaches to step into less than ideal situations and attempt to turn things around.
This is a process that Houston Texans fans are unfortunately all too familiar with. Since Bill O'Brien's tenure ended in the middle of the 2021 season, the Texans have entered three offseasons without a head coach, and until DeMeco Ryans returned to the franchise that drafted his a decade and a half earlier, let's just say that Houston's success with these hires was limited.
On Thursday, ESPN's Bill Barnwell ranked all 37 head coaching hires made between 2021 and 2025, and predictably, DeMeco Ryans arrived much earlier on the list than either Lovie Smith or David Culley did.
#5 - DeMeco Ryans
"Ryans took over a Texans team that had won three or four games in each of the three seasons before his arrival. It has won 10 or more games in each of his first three years at the helm, adding a playoff victory in each of those campaigns for good measure," Barnwell wrote.
With a 32-19 record, Ryans has won more games over his first three seasons than any other Texans head coach has won in any three season stretch, and with three postseason wins, Ryans already has more Playoff victories than any other head coach in franchise history.
In comparison to the other 2023 coaching hires, Ryans ranks higher than the rest of the field, with Sean Payton (6th), Shane Steichen (15th), Jonathan Gannon (26th) and Frank Reich (36th).
The only coaches over the last five years who were ranked ahead of Ryans on Barnwell's list are Dan Campbell, Nick Sirianni, Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel.
#33 - Lovie Smith
An experienced coach with the Bears and Buccaneers, it looked like Smith's time as an NFL head coach had come to an end after he was fired by Illinois," writes Barnwell. "Smith joined the Texans as a defensive coordinator, and the following year, he was promoted to head coach. The Texans were in the middle of a rebuild, having just traded Deshaun Watson, and there weren't high expectations for Smith in his third head coaching opportunity on the pro level."
No, expectations were not high for Lovie Smith. In fact, you could make that case that like his predecessor before him -- who we'll get to in a moment -- the mandate was actually for the Texans to bottom out in order to pave the way for a brighter future in H-Town.
In Lovie Smith's lone season as Houston's head coach, they nearly did just that, but what Smith will be most remembered for during his brief stint with the Texans is the team's victory in the final game of the 2022 regular season. Despite the #1 pick in the NFL Draft being on the line, the Texans scored late, converted a two-point conversion, and lost out on the top pick of the 2023 NFL Draft.
Of course, this ended up working out quite well for the Texans. With the 2nd overall pick, the Texans selected CJ Stroud, who despite his ups and downs, has had a better career thus far than 1st overall pick Bryce Young. Houston then went ahead and traded up for the 3rd overall pick too, selecting Young's Alabama teammate Will Anderson Jr. with the pick.
Meanwhile, that Week 18 win allowed the Chicago Bears to move up to the #1 pick, which they traded for a bounty from the Carolina Panthers, netting them DJ Moore and multiple draft picks down the line, one of which would become Caleb Williams.
#34 - David Culley
"At 65, Culley was the oldest first-time coach hired by a team since 1970, and while the veteran assistant had worked under head coaches such as Andy Reid and Sean McDermott, his only experience as a coordinator was in 1990 at UTEP," Barnwell writes. "It's incredibly rare for veteran coaches toward the end of their careers and coaches without coordinating experience to jump into head coaching roles, but Culley did both."
Poor David Culley never stood a chance. With Deshaun Watson holding out for the entire 2022 season, the Texans were doomed before Week 1 even began. And Culley, who won four games in his only season in the big seat, ended up being the fall guy for a franchise in complete disarray.
Culley has the distinction of being the lowest ranked coach on this list who wasn't fired midseason, ranking higher than only Nathaniel Hackett, Frank Reich and Urban Meyer.