Everything Texans HC DeMeco Ryans said after a Week 4 loss to the Jaguars

Here's everything Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said following a review of the film from Sunday's 17-10 loss against the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Stadium, including an update on Derek Stingley Jr., the offensive personnel and where to go from here at 0-3.

Question: On if the team will continue to rotate the guards on the offensive line

DeMeco Ryans: “We rotated the guards in the game on Sunday because we felt like that's what we wanted to do, to give Juice [Scruggs] a chance to get in there. Juice did a really nice job with some of the reps that he was given.”

Q: On what he means by the team being close

Ryans: “We were close in our three games. We were there in the fourth quarter. We were close to finishing and closing those games out. There are plays in each game that we've had, these first three games, that we didn't finish and win the game. So, I'm not talking about close as a team, I’m talking about winning the football game. That's what we're here to do. We're here to win football games. We've been in a position to win those games, and we have not won the game. We got to find a way to win the game. We got to make the plays in the fourth quarter of the games we've been in. We got to make those plays to put us in position and to just ultimately win the football game. That's what we're here to do. That's what we work tirelessly and hard for is to win football games. So, the games have been close. We've been right there in the games. We just got to find a way to get it done.”

Q: On if being close in encouraging

Ryans: “It's not encouraging to be in close. We want to win games. It's not about being close. That's just stating the facts or stating the obvious of how the three games have played out, how those games have happened for us. But, we're not here to just be close, we're here to win the football game.”

Q: If winning the game would mask the issues the team is facing

Ryans: “We go back, no matter win or loss, and we dissect the film. See issues, whether you win or you lose. To me, you attack the film the same way every single time and you attack it to see, first and foremost, how can we be better? No matter what the outcome or the result of the game is, how do you get better? That's what it's about. A long season is about how do you grow, how do you get better each and every week? That's what we'll do every time.”

Q: On the final interception

Ryans: “As we go through the film, we talk about the route distribution, the protection, all of those things are things that we bring up, and we look at to see how can we better deploy guys to make sure we're giving ourselves the best chance to have successful plays. So, some of that comes with protection, where we have a problem guy. We may need to put some chips on the edge, and make sure we're helping out when we have an issue player, like Josh Hines-Allen did a really good job yesterday. We got to find a way to protect better. When it comes to route distribution, some plays, it was good. Some plays, we can do better of distributing the guys. Some plays, we can do better of running the routes the proper way. So, it's all of us. It's all inclusive, coaches, players, everybody. Just fine-tuning things to make sure we are giving ourselves the best chance.”

Q: On the communication of the secondary

Ryans: “When you see a big play that happens on our defense, somewhere along the lines, there's a bust in communication. It all starts with communication and it hasn't been as crisp as it needs to be. So, we have to play better on the defensive side. We have to communicate better, and we have to execute the defense better. So, it's not been great. We see that. We have to make some adjustments there to make sure we get it corrected.”

Q: On why he feels the defense hasn’t been able to close out games

Ryans: “For us defensively, when I look at this past game, I thought we had multiple opportunities to take the ball away. We had one hit us right in the hands, we didn't take it away. We had one in Tampa Bay hit us in the hands, we didn't take it away. We had a couple where we're supposed to be a deep safety, they throw the ball up and we're not taking the football away. So, there are multiple things where we've had opportunities, defensively, and we haven't capitalized on those opportunities by being exactly where we're supposed to be, communicating the proper way, tackling the proper way as a unit. The tackling hasn't been up to our standard and so we have to get that fixed.”

On if he feels confident dealing with the same issues as last year now that he has faced them before

Ryans: “For me right now with our team, when you go through different… Each team, no matter what year it is, each team has its own, it's faced with its own adversity and different issues that arise. So, for me as the Head Coach, it's a matter of, ‘Hey, different set of problems, different set of challenges,’ and I'm up for it. That's why I'm here. That's how we attack it, we'll get it all corrected, and we'll get this thing going in the right direction. I don't compare year to year for me. I say this is a different year, 2023, completely different team; 2024, completely different team. We're here, we have different issues here in 2025. But, we go and we attack it the right way. We attack it with the right attitude and we're going to get this thing rolling in the right direction.”

Q: On how to chip away at the challenges

“You go through it. You make the necessary adjustments you need to make. Whether it's schematically, whether it's personnel, you just make the adjustments that you need to make schematically and see how it improves from week to week. So, we'll take a look at where we've been over these first three weeks, just take a deep dive and look into it and see how can we, first and foremost, as coaches, it always starts with the coaches, how can we put guys in better position? How can we help the players to be in position to get on the winning side of things? So, it all starts there with how we plan, how we prep, and how we structure practices throughout this week. Then we cut the players loose and let them go play and let the players go execute and do what they need to do.”

Q: On his message to the team

Ryans: “You keep guys motivated by understanding storms are going to hit you in life. Whether it's… We do football, but also in real life, storms will arise, storms will come in your life. When you go through the storm, are you coming out stronger? Or are you getting ripped apart by the storm? So, there are different people who can handle that adversity and a storm that comes, it's how do you handle it? You got to remain resilient. You got to remain strong through it. It really tests your character to see who are you truly as a player, as a man, how are you, who are you? We'll see that, we'll see how we handle this as individuals. We'll see how we handle this as a team.”

Q: On if this team can replicate the 2018 regular season run to the playoffs

Ryans: “I did not know that. So, thanks for the history there. But, anything can happen. It all starts with us, first and foremost, just playing cleaner and protecting the football. I know we were in position there, again. To turn the ball over three times, to only take it one time, I don't care who you're playing or when you're playing, it's going to be hard to win that game. We can try to point fingers here, there, this and that. We got to protect the football, no matter what it looks like. If we want to see ourselves start down that track, we got to just make sure we're protecting the football, taking it away when we have our opportunities and just playing cleaner, finishing the proper way.”

Q: On if the offensive mistakes have allowed opposing defenses to dictate play

Ryans: “It's never about the opponent to me, especially when you have the penalties that we have on first down that puts us behind the sticks. That has nothing to do with the opponent dictating anything, it's things that we control. If we handle that the right way, if we make sure we got a proper hat on the hat in the run game, we make sure we're executing in the passing game, going through our progressions the right way, hitting the receiver. Those are all things we control, not necessarily a defense that's dictating to us anything. We just got to control what we control and press forward.”

Q: On if he was hoping for more urgency from the offense late in the game

Ryans: “If you guys saw me animated on the field, that was directed… I think during that snap, we got on the ball, we went tempo, and the refs held our offense from continuing to run their play. The ref said that we were substituting, which we were not substituting. No one on our sideline got off the sideline or moved. So, they didn't allow us to run our tempo offense. They held the huddle. That's who I was talking to, the official. Making sure that we were able to run our offense the proper way.”

Q: On if he was yelling at offensive coordinator Nick Caley

Ryans: “I just said I was talking to the official. No, I was not yelling at anybody on our sideline, any coaches, any players. I'm too cool for that.”

Q: On if he would send that play to the league office for review

Ryans: “Every week, if we have any issues, anything that arises from that standpoint of how the game was managed, we'll go through it with the league office and make sure we talk about that. Really, it's also about talking to the officials for the next game of things we want to do offensively. If we wanted to do that, just having awareness.”

Q: On CB Derek Stingley Jr.

Ryans: “Stingley is still; we're evaluating his oblique. He hurt his oblique early in the game yesterday and tried to push through it. He couldn't push through it. So, we're still evaluating him, probably day-to-day with where he's at.”

Q: On his message to the fans 

Ryans: “That's how we played the games. We're 0-3, we don't want to be 0-3. But, that's the matter of fact. That's where we are now. We have to go out, we have to play better. So, for our fans, just continue to support us if you want to. I know how everybody gets rowdy, everybody gets upset. You should win every game, I get it. We're trying to win every game, we're working hard, we're doing our best. We just got to go play better to make sure we give our fans something to be proud of.”

This article originally appeared on Texans Wire: Everything Texans HC DeMeco Ryans said after Week 4 loss to Jaguars