Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans passes major personal milestone

The Houston Texans had Sunday off from training camp and will be returning to the field shortly. Just because the team wasn't practicing doesn't mean nothing happened, though. Yesterday head coach DeMeco Ryans turned 40 years old.

It's easy to forget anything in the modern news cycle, but Ryans was a bit of a baller himself not too long ago. Born and raised in Alabama, Ryans played his high school football at Jess Lanier and later finishing his college career with the Crimson Tide. Ryans enjoyed a breakout season as a senior, posting five sacks, 11.5 tackles for a loss and a pick, earning All-America honors and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year award.

That helped Ryans springboard to the NFL, where he was picked in the second round of the draft (number 33 overall) by Houston. He went on to play six years for the Texans, totaling 86 starts. Ryans played another four years for the Philadelphia Eagles before retiring after the 2015 season. All together he played 140 games and made two Pro Bowls.

Not long after Ryans got his start as a coach for the San Francisco 49ers as a defensive quality control coach, eventually moving up to inside linebackers coach and finally defensive coordinator from 2021-2022.

Ryans did well enough in that gig to earn his first head coach job at the game's highest level last season with Houston. In Year 1 Ryans turned the Texans around right away. With a little help from C.J. Stroud , he transformed what was a 3-13 bottom-feeder into a scary 10-7 dark-horse championship contender. We'd say the rest is history, but he's just getting started.

It's enough to make any 39 year old feel unaccomplished. Happy belated birthday, coach!

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