Texans 26, 49ers 15
DEMECO RYANS: Really thankful as always. It's not about us. Any time you get this opportunity, just make sure I give glory where it's due, and that's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for continuing to bless us over and over again. It's nothing we've done to be blessed, but we got it. We're thankful for the grace and the love we're shown.
Just proud of all of our guys for the way they showed up and played today. Just a truly complete game starting with the offense, the way we ran the football, controlled the line of scrimmage. Thought our offensive line did a great job. We were able to control the ball for 41 minutes, which is huge for us. Ran the ball well. CJ had an outstanding game. Just all around you talk about really good offensive performance. Guys did a great job.
Fire away.
Q. How did today come together? This week, Monday night, all week long, a lot of talk about all the things that weren't happening with this team. To pull it together and just looked almost watching it almost seamless, what was the big difference this week?
DEMECO RYANS: For this week, the main thing, our guys just went out and everybody was I would say locked in. Everybody had laser focus on their job, what we needed to do. Guys made the plays they were supposed to make. I thought CJ made great decisions with the football. When it wasn't there, checking the ball down to the backs. Our backs played well. Ran the ball for over 100 yards. It starts up front always. When our offensive line can do that, control the line of scrimmage, things will go well for us.
But overall couldn't be more proud. Defensively also did an outstanding job. That's a great team over there. Those guys made two really big plays on us. Made some outstanding catches on us. That happens. Our guys are resilient and they continue to bounce back.
They didn't let one big play affect them. They were still able to come out and continue to press forward, play together, and finish the game.
Q. How important was it to get an early start, to see the offense have success for you to...
DEMECO RYANS: For me, what I'm most proud of is how we finished the game. We've had some good starts. We haven't finished well in games. That's been the key for us, is the second half and how we finish in the second half. That's what I'm most proud of there.
Any time you punt the football one time, that's controlling the game. So great job. When Tommy did punt he had a good punt for us.
Q. Coach, you guys have did a very good job with Christian McCaffrey today. What was the game plan throughout the week?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, Christian is a great player, phenomenal player. Talked about him all throughout the week, and we knew we had to stop him. Run game, passing game, we knew he would be their highest targeted guy and we were able to hold him. I don't think he got many yards today. It was a collective effort from everyone, starting with the defensive line really disrupting the run game up front, and I think we tackled really well.
He had a couple check downs there in the two-minute drive, but overall thought we tackled really well versus a really great player.
Q. How would you overall describe the pass protection today? CJ had a great day.
DEMECO RYANS: Our O-line did an outstanding job. Again, for us to stay upright the entire game when it wasn't there, CJ made, again, great decisions of stepping up in the pocket, taking what was given, what was there for him.
So proud of the way CJ played. Proud of the way the O-line played.
Q. Without Nico Collins obviously you guys were relying on others to step up. What could you say about the job that the wide receiver room did today?
DEMECO RYANS: A lot of young guys stepped up and made plays. Noel, Higgins, Wayne stepped up, all of our receivers. All those guys showed up. Not just in the passing game. The way we ran the football, the receivers have to block. So they did a great job of that as well. Coach McDaniel has done a great job with these guys having them prepared.
It doesn't matter who is out there. If you do what you're coached to do, do it the right way, with a relentless mindset, we can go out and play well versus anyone. The receivers showed up big time today.
Q. Coach, you talk about each week trying to play clean football. Eight penalties today. The penalties seem to be so dispersed.
DEMECO RYANS: For sure, with the penalties we had a couple holding calls that we have to clean up. Like the O-line did a good job, but we got clean up some of the holding penalties that's knocking us back.
In the beginning of the year we allowed those penalties to kind of stall us out on the drive. Right now nobody panicked. Everybody continued to press forward knowing we can overcome any situation. So no one got in a bad mood about a penalty. Let's just keep playing. Penalties will happen.
We want to clean them up playing with great technique. We can do a much better job of course. Defensively we had offsides penalty that we cannot have on third down that allowed them to go down and drive. That's the one that's truly controllable that we cannot have.
Q. Coach, coming into this game there was a lot of criticism and noise about the way that offense was ran, in particular the way that Nick Caley was calling plays. How impressed are you how he called the game today and got off to such a fast start?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, Caley did a great job again today. He's done a great job with what we were asking him to do. He's doing a great job. He has the guys, guys have his back. Everybody is in this together from Caley, myself, the players, we are all in this thing together.
Really doesn't matter about outside noise. We hear a lot about that every time you lose. Everybody wants to come up with something. Get rid of everybody, fire everybody if you lose a game, go out, don't play well. The noise is just a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about.
Here in this room as a team we stick together as a team and we know it's only about us, right? You never let the outside noise creep in and control who we are. We know who we are, what we're about. We know the formula, what it takes to go win games.
We just understand that the outside noise is just noise. We would never go ask anybody who is giving the noise, never go ask them their opinion about how to game plan or play football. So we keep that in-house and we go and press forward and we go out and play good football. That's what it's about.
Q. Piggybacking on the last question, I know it's just one win, but how much pressure does this take off you now that you played so well complementary football in all three phases? Secondly, did it help the fact that you are so familiar with the 49ers in game planning this one?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, I don't have any pressure on me. We're in the NFL. Every week is a tough week. We're going to celebrate this win because we got a win versus a gritty, tough football team. The Niners are great. Even though they are missing a lot of top guys still they found a way to pull it together, play a great game, and we knew that was going to be the case.
We didn't fall into the trap of who they didn't have. Kyle has those guys prepared every single week. Our game plan was just to go out and execute the way we know how to execute, and the guys did that and I'm proud of them for that.
Q. You talked a little bit about how everybody played well. Can you talk about CJ and just his maturity, the way the offense has looked so far this season for him to keep being able to press and have the performance he had today? What does it say about him and his leadership?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, when CJ is locked in, when the quarterback is playing well and CJ plays well and he's upbeat and everybody can see he's going to the right spot with the football, he's making great decisions, stepping up, escaping the pocket, converting some runs there, third downs. I mean, you just see the entire energy, the vibe of our entire sideline just changes.
Everybody is looking for the quarterback for that leadership. It's just about nothing special or nothing grand. It's just about him just remaining disciplined as a quarterback, doing exactly what he's supposed to do on every given play. When he does that, he makes great decisions, and the O-line the way they worked today, that's what you see: One of his best games ever.
The way he operated today was very clean football and I'm proud of where he is. We just have to continue to stay with this every week.
Q. You all and he did this without your best offensive playmaker. What did you need from them to be able to do that in spite of it?
DEMECO RYANS: For us, again, I said we always want all of our best players out on the field. But, again, you don't make excuses. Like the game goes on. Whoever is up, whoever is out there, like we expect our guys to execute, do what they're supposed to do, and play to the best of their ability.
We never asked anyone to go be Nico Collins, someone you're not. Play to the best of your ability and we'll be just fine. That's what the guys did today.
Q. Coach, on third down today you guys were excellent. (Regarding limited time of possession.) What does that say about this team when your offense plays and executes...
Also, how impactful was the 2025 draft class?
DEMECO RYANS: For us when you're able to win third downs which is always a huge key to winning the game it allows to you stay on the field. It allows to you sustain drives. In games where we've done that we're able to stay on the field and just continue to press forward and end drives with points.
So that's the importance have third down. For our young guys in this draft class, they're continuing to get better. They're growing. They're stepping up, making big plays for us. Jalen Noel, he's jumping of the tape for the past couple weeks of making some big time plays for us. Things you saw him do at Iowa State are showing up. The explosiveness, down the field return ability, just all across.
You can tell they're all getting more comfortable with what they're asked to do and really flourishing in their roles.
Q. How would you overall assess how your defense did today?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, overall, again, the defense as a whole, the guys did a great job. It's rushing, covering, together, the ball comes out quick. Hit us on a couple deep passes on the sideline and tried it again and Kamari was able to go up and make a play. That's what it's about. When you have your op at the end of the day have one will have a one-on-one in the back end.
Are you making the play or not? We made plays today.
Q. Coach, I think you may have mentioned it a little bit earlier on. Just the way that your offensive line was able to protect CJ today, I think you all didn't have any sacks. Kept a lot of the pressure off of him. When you see that, not only the expectations, but what you know they can do?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, I know our offensive line can do it, right? When we do it and we do it at a high level and we're focused, locked in, like that's what it looks like.
And so hopefully they see that and it's something that continues to give them that confidence that when we are working in unison, guys are together, on the same page communicating, no matter what happens, we're straining to finish to make sure that the defense is staying off the quarterback, like there is a lot of things open for us down the field.
We have a quarterback who can deliver the football wherever it needs to go.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports