DeMeco Ryans wins Coach of the Year from another outlet ahead of AP Awards
By Chad Porto
Two of his players already took home three awards for their respective categories, and Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans is hoping to join them. C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson won the Pro Football Writers of America, NFL on FOX, and CBS Sports awards for the Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year Awards.
Ryans, to his own credit, has won the Pro Football Writers of America award for Coach of the Year award, and today he found out he has two more trophies coming his way. First from the NFL on Fox/FOX Sports side of things, with Ryans taking home the fan vote, and later on from CBS Sports, who also named Ryans their Coach of the Year for the 2023 season.
Though like Anderson before him, it was a tight race.
According to the voters for the CBS version of the award, Ryans only took home 13 of the 32 possible votes, nearly losing the award to Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski. Stefanski, like Ryans, also had an impressive season. While Ryans is credited for turning around a young team fairly quickly, Stefanski navigated his team to the playoffs despite going from bad quarterback to bad quarterback.
It wasn't until Joe Flacco arrived that the Browns started to look good offensively. Despite the offensive woes, however, Stefanski had the Browns within striking distance even before Flacco arrived on the team.
So it's no surprise that Ryans nearly lost to Stefanski, the competition was tough. Dan Campbell, the Detroit Lions head coach will likely get some votes his way as well, making the award a hotly contested one. Unlike Ryans' quarterback, Stroud, who seems to be easily winning award after award with no real threat existing who can stop him.
Ryans is now up for the biggest award of the year, which will be revealed on come Thursday at the NFL Honors event.