Texans' DeMeco Ryans ready to start back from zero in 2024: 'It doesn't matter what happened last year'

The Houston Texans surprised in DeMeco Ryans’ first season as head coach, coming back to swipe the AFC South title. With reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud at the helm, they’ll sneak up on no one in 2024.

Over the weekend at the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame ceremony, Ryans informed Rhett Lewis from NFL Network that he is eager to see the progress his young team will make during the training camp and preseason.

“The most exciting thing, what I love about the NFL is it doesn’t matter what happened last year,” Ryans said during the interview, which aired in part Monday on The Insiders at 7 p.m. ET. “You get to hit reset. To start back from ground zero, I love that, going back to our Day 1 fundamentals, installs, and seeing guys truly grow and seeing how far we can get before the Hall of Fame Game, see our young players get better and compete against each other. That’s what I enjoy most. I still enjoy — and it comes back to the Senior Bowl — I still enjoy the growth and development of young players. That’s what gets me going. That’s why I enjoy coaching is to just have some type of imprint on those guys to help them to go and achieve whatever they want to achieve in their careers.”

The Texans imported several veterans, including Stefon Diggs, Joe Mixon and Danielle Hunter, to buffer the young core.

Ryan has consistently reminded his 2024 roster that success isn’t handed out yearly, it must be earned.

“That football season, 2023, is one I’ll always remember,” he said. “It was a special one because we were able to do it with special people. Getting C.J. and getting Will (Anderson) and Tank (Dell), so many young guys who contributed to flipping that culture in such a short period of time. It doesn’t happen easy, it doesn’t happen quickly without the right people. I’m very excited to have those guys and to work with those guys and to have the year that we had.

People often discuss how exhilarating the past year was. However, I presented a statistic to our team during the off-season, pointing out that we may have won some games, but we had 10 games that were decided by a single score. These games were incredibly close and required us to strategize until the last minute. This will always be a part of the NFL. It’s about being intelligent and confident during crucial moments, like the final two minutes of a game. Can you perform under pressure? Can you stay focused and execute your role perfectly? That’s what really matters. So, I always remind them that we didn’t win every game easily. Any game can turn either way, and we need to prepare for that in the upcoming season. Success won’t just happen; we need to start from scratch and work our way up again.