Just a little over one month ago, the Houston Texans were unexpectedly staring at an 0-3 hole, giving everyone an easy answer to the question, 'Who is the most disappointing team of the first few weeks of the season?' Dropping three consecutive games to start a new season is not just a death sentence for a team's postseason hopes... it's the sort of start that usually precedes a franchise completely unravelling before our very eyes.
But since then, the Texans have won three of four games and regained hope that the 2025 campaign won't end up being a lost season. The hill that the Texans still need to climb to get back to the postseason for a third straight year is steep one, but what we've learned over the last month is that this squad is at least up for the challenge, and that's at least in part because of head coach DeMeco Ryans.
Even as those of us who are on the outside looking in have spent time questioning this team's mettle and its postseason prospects, the Texans have remained steady. They've continued to dominate defensively while the offense, despite an occasional setback or stinker, has kept making strides and started to resemble what it was in 2023.
This can and should be credited to a culture that started to be established by Ryans shortly after he was hired to become the head coach of the Texans on January 31, 2023. But according to Houston Texans owner Cal McNair, that's precisely what they expected from the then 39-year-old first-time head coach when he was hired.
“We knew him as a player and had studied him in college and had watched him in his coaching career and he just stepped into it," Cal McNair said on Tuesday, per Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 Houston. "I think we’re in a really good spot as a team. Sometimes, you know, when you start 0-3, teams can split apart. Ours didn’t. The team has been really strong, he’s been really strong, and we’re really happy with where we are and what’s in front of us."
The fact the Texans didn't split apart after an 0-3 start is proof that the amount of time and care DeMeco Ryans has put into establishing the right kind of culture in Houston has paid off. Clearly, this is a very talented group as well, but we've seen more talented football teams than this one come apart at the seams in the face of adversity.
"I was talking to DeMeco the other day about culture and psychology actually," McNair added. "We spend so much of our time on the culture, and DeMeco as as he keeps evolving and getting better and better as a coach, he recognizes that and that part of his activity is growing and so you’re seeing that as he messages the team and keeps the team on the right path."
Houston hasn't strayed off the right path too much in Ryans' two and a half season tenure as the team's head coach. In that time, the Texans are 23-18 and have won a pair of division titles. And if they can complete this in-season turnaround and make the Playoffs, it would be the first time in franchise history that the team has made the postseason three years in a row.