DeMeco Ryans Has a Defense Built Like Him

As they’ve cycled through quarterbacks, the 49ers’ top-ranked defense has remained a constant. It has everything to do with the man in charge of it and his younger self.

At the Texans’ football headquarters, only the brave called the middle linebacker by his actual birth name. This destroyer of running backs and setter of standards wasn’t “DeMeco Ryans” at the office. Nor was he “Meco,” the nickname his many of his friends still use. Instead, everyone in Houston, from owner to custodian, called him “Cap.”

It stood for captain, naturally, and it spoke to Ryans’s bearing, the force that emanated from deep within. His job description, according to fellow Texans linebacker Zac Diles, was: literal headhunter; trying to come f--- your world up, seek violence, wired different, love all that s---, every … single … snap. But Ryans meant much more to a nascent franchise that had existed for four NFL seasons and won only 18 games before drafting him in the second round in 2006.

Cap raised expectations as easily as he bench-pressed weights so heavy the plates bent bars. His energy never flagged. When Diles arrived in 2007, Cap already ran the building. In only his second season.

Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images

Diles sometimes marveled at the totality that morphed Ryans into Cap, the league’s defensive rookie of the year, collector of 156 tackles that first season. He wasn’t the most athletic linebacker, nor the fastest, smartest nor most physical. Nothing he did screamed wow. But Cap was still all those things—athletic, fast, smart, physical—and he combined those natural gifts with impeccable technique and voluminous film study. He sat in the front row at meetings and filled notebooks with reminders, keys and observations. He picked up random garbage strewn about the locker room. The amalgam screamed for him.

Even now, as Diles carves out a post-NFL life, he still hears Ryans every day, whether they speak or text or not. Cap permeated his consciousness. Diles still refers to Ryans by his nickname, still holds himself to Ryans’s exacting benchmarks. His teammate was more like his coach. He still is. “It wasn’t just on the field; it was the gold standard in every facet of your life,” Diles says. “Like, everything. I’ll never use Cap’s name in vain.”

He means he’ll never disappoint his captain. Diles watches Ryans now and sees exactly that. Ryans is the 49ers’ defensive coordinator, his presence and mind and that bearing all critical for a team with Super Bowl hopes. He helms perhaps the most feared D in pro football. He is among the most sought-after candidates for franchises searching for a new head coach, including the one that drafted him. But just watch him on the sidelines. Check out the animated face, the Tiger Woods–style fist pumps, the soaring chest bumps, the leaps complete with scissor kicks. That’s Ryans. And that’s Cap.

Diles called him a few weeks back. He told Ryans that watching his teammate perform on the sidelines made him happy, that the histrionics tethered the past they shared together to Cap’s future as a head coach. Diles is sure 49ers defenders love those moments. He’s sure they love his old friend, too. For Diles, Ryans represents no less than a litmus test for human beings.

“If anyone has anything negative to say about Cap, they need to look at themselves in the mirror,” he says. “Everyone loves Cap.”

Especially his replica in San Francisco. Because Fred Warner isn’t just an All-Pro with legitimate claims to the mythical title of best linebacker alive. Warner is also proof of evolution—his and Ryans’s and pro football’s, and how all three have grown and changed. Warner is the centerpiece of an elite defense. He’s also a better version of his coach.

When the Eagles traded for Ryans in 2012, Louis Riddick, their director of pro personnel, noted Ryans’s “aura, his presence, confidence, communication skills.” Ryans was relatable, approachable, even vulnerable. But he didn’t tolerate foolishness. He never relaxed his expectations for teammates nor himself. He wasn’t a coach yet, but in a way he already was one.

Sometimes, it seemed like the NFL was changing. Executives placed higher and higher premiums on cornerbacks and pass rushers, building units from the D-line backward or the defensive backfield in.

For the 49ers defense, all eyes have been on Ryans :: Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images

Even then, Riddick and Ryans understood that, throughout the NFL’s history, most dominant defenses had still hunted for those kinds of players. No coach ever turned away from an island corner or a wrecking ball defensive end. But they built their schemes from the middle out, around linebackers. Think Jack Lambert as the original Tampa 2 linebacker in Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain, Mike Singletary in the middle of Chicago’s 46 defense, Derrick Brooks patrolling the deep middle in the Bucs’ Tampa 2, a few different iterations of the Ravens’ Super Bowl defenses built around Ray Lewis. And now, Warner and Ryans. Those are all defenses fashioned around formidable linebackers, defensive tackles and safeties, with the intention of freeing up the best perimeter players to make more game-changing plays.

“Bill Belichick used to tell us that all the time in Cleveland,” Riddick says. “You defend inside out, you attack inside out and, to do that, you have to be strong down the middle. That’s the characteristic that all great defenses have. And Meco knows that, because that was his career.”

Now an ESPN analyst, Riddick recently met with Andy Reid as part of the Monday Night Football broadcast team. In that conversation, Reid admitted something: that after drafting quarterback Patrick Mahomes and collecting an absurd number of fleet wideouts, he had drifted away from heavy tight end usage, more condensed offensive sets and throwing in the middle of the field. That was a mistake, Reid said. Just because the Chiefs could throw deep and attack the perimeter better than most teams didn’t mean that was their best strategy to win. Even with Mahomes and Tyreek Hill, the shortest throws and most vulnerable defenders, almost always clustered in the middle of the field, still presented Reid with his most ideal matchups. They also opened up the perimeter for deep throws that defenses elected to take away in recent seasons.

As offenses targeted the middle of the field, more teams in the modern NFL masked second-level defensive weaknesses—linebackers—through schematic alterations or depth among defensive backs. But Ryans’s 49ers unit is built like those historically stout units. Nick Bosa is the defense’s most disruptive presence, and cornerback Charvarius Ward, a free-agent addition last March, is among its highest paid. But it’s the players who are most like Ryans once was—Warner, linebacker Dre Greenlaw and All-Pro safety Talanoa Hufanga—who form the heart of the defense.

In Sunday's playoff win, Warner ran up the seam with Cowboys star receiver CeeDee Lamb to break up a pass, a play few linebackers are capable of making.  :: Michael Owens/Getty Images

Middle-out into stout. That’s the philosophy. But it’s an approach that also requires Ryans to trust those second-level defenders. If Warner cannot cover and those middle-of-the-field throws are immediately open, Bosa and the pass rush have less time to chase down quarterbacks. Help defenders would be concentrated in the middle of the field, rather than supporting Ward when he’s challenged vertically or blitzing to eliminate another beat for the opposing quarterback.

Fortunately for the Faithful, Warner can cover. He can also blitz. In eliminating easier middle-of-the-field throws, he and Greenlaw elevate the Niners’ rankings in pass rush (first in sack rate) and pressure (fifth in pressure rate). San Francisco’s defense ranked tied for first in interceptions and tied for second in takeaways. All of that relates to Ryans’s philosophy, the one driving a 12-game win streak.

“The cerebral part of football has always been his strength, what made him great,” Riddick says. When Riddick watches Warner and Greenlaw, how fast they process the game stands out to him, along with the consistency they both exhibit. Where does that start? Cap.

After the 2011 season, the Texans’ general manager faced an uncomfortable dilemma. “Toughest thing, I had to do in my career,” Rick Smith says. Houston had finished 6–10 but appeared to be ascending. That owed, in part, to a bevy of talented, young defensive players, like pass rusher J.J. Watt, linebacker Brian Cushing, and defensive backs Johnathan Joseph and Kareem Jackson. Beyond Joseph, all were 25 or under—and Joseph, at 27, had made first-team All-Pro. All needed contract extensions or would soon, which was mostly a good problem. Except …

Ryans missed 10 games in 2010 after rupturing his left Achilles in mid-October. He returned for ’11 and started every game. But his statistics (64 tackles, no sacks) were similar to the year before, which meant his salary no longer matched his production, which meant that Smith had to make the hardest kind of choice.

Smith called Ryans and asked the linebacker to meet him “off campus,” at a restaurant nowhere near the stadium. Smith was honest, but while he laid out all those factors, he also thanked the player he was about to trade. He thanked Ryans for his service, his play and what he meant to the Texans organization. Smith also promised to find Ryans a new home that would benefit both him and his family. Ryans, while shocked, thanked Smith right back. They ate dinner. Soon after, Ryans went to Philly.

In the 22 seasons he spent as an assistant coach or personnel executive in professional football, Smith can recall doing this only once: that night. “That’s how much respect I had for the young man,” he says now.

Anyone who knows Ryans espouses similar sentiments. His life narrative—born in Bessemer, Ala., during the steel boom; guided by his mother, Martha, as she toiled in factories, sometimes working more than one job—became both myth and man. His first love was baseball. He loved God. And he loved, like his mother, who lost her left pinkie finger to a grinder at a factory and went back the next day, outworking everybody else.

Football became his calling. He chose Alabama, the most natural of fits, and his senior season he won SEC Defensive Player of the Year, while also cleaning up that locker room. During Hurricane Katrina, Ryans donated his per diem; even then, his example prompted teammates to do the same. He won the Lott Impact Trophy, the only award in major college football where character is weighed alongside on-field performance. He obtained a management degree, graduating early and with honors.

All this would help him later on. But he had no idea at the time. Certainly not when the Texans used the first pick in the second round on the linebacker who raised their standard. Warner was still a teenager in 2006, not yet a high school starter at Mission Hills High in California. He loved the Dallas Cowboys and only dreamt of playing in the NFL. He played linebacker, just like Cap did. Back then, anyway.

Like his coach once was, Warner is now at the heart of an NFL defense :: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Warner’s high school coach, Chris Hauser, remembers his preparation. It never wavered. He played football with a visceral joy; he loved every second of every game on every field. Later, Mission Hills would retire Warner’s jersey number. He lingered for hours before and after the ceremony, encouraging young players, taking them through what he had overcome. Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, in Houston, Ryans moved from outside to middle linebacker in the Texans’ 4–3 defense, becoming Cap almost immediately. “Right away you could see: This guy was special,” Smith says.

Cap became a disciple of Johnny Holland, his position coach and a retired NFL linebacker. Holland helped Ryans learn the position’s nuances, hone his instincts and command a locker room. He heard teammates like Diles insist that Cap would become their children’s godfather one day. Diles wondered whether Ryans might run for office or go to law school. Smith considered Ryans a potential pastor, and he’d laugh at how Ryans would probably run the most energetic, focused, driven congregation in the country.

That was the thing about Cap. As his coaching climb came to mirror his playing career in speed and impact, many have described him as born to coach. He wasn’t, not exactly. He was born for success, in whatever form that took. “He commands that,” Smith says. “There are just certain people who walk the planet who just elevate everybody around them. They’re rare.” They’re him.

Ryans retired after the 2015 season—10 years in the NFL and 140 games, nearly 1,000 tackles and two Pro Bowl nods. He taught Diles so well they sometimes communicated without speaking.

The cycle of NFL life continued. Holland retired in 1993. Two years later, he became a coach. Twenty-two years after that, he was still coaching; in 2017, he started in San Francisco, hired as part of a Kyle Shanahan rebuild. In theory, modern NFL offenses that threw footballs all over the field and spread defenses thinner and thinner had rendered linebackers less important. True or not, the position had started to lose luster.

Three men on the same team would change that. One was Holland, who brought Ryans to San Francisco with him. Just like his mentor, Ryans took one season off, then dived right into coaching. He became the 49ers’ defensive quality control coach, then, after one season, he began coaching the inside linebackers. The 49ers took a promising one, out of BYU, in the third round of the 2018 draft.

Warner was versatile, not to mention agile and rangy and fast and strong. Just like his new position coach, he quickly picked up on the nuances. He grabbed a starting gig for the first NFL game he ever played, also just like Cap. And he displayed similar leadership, also immediately.

Warner has missed only one game in five years. That’s 81 regular-season contests, plus eight playoff games. That’s at least 118 tackles every season. And at least 94% of his team’s defensive snaps. That’s two Pro Bowls, and two first-team All-Pro nods. He excelled under Robert Saleh, helping transform a defense that ranked last in the NFL in yards and points allowed in 2016. He played in Super Bowl LIV—and lost—with seven tackles and an interception of Mahomes.

The progress continued, though, for everyone. When Saleh left to take over the Jets, Shanahan elevated Ryans to defensive coordinator in 2021. Ryans drew up the game plan that stymied Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in the playoffs. San Francisco held Green Bay to 58 overall yards in the second half. Ryans mixed coverages like records, brought pressure from all angles and netted five sacks. More important, after allowing an early score, Warner gathered the defense and demanded better play. “He got to them before I could get to them,” Ryans said.

Holland (in white cap) now works with Ryans as the linebackers coach on the 49ers' staff :: Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images

The coach had already made schematic changes that started in the middle of that D, which meant making Warner into, essentially, a better version of himself. The Vikings called about their head coaching vacancy, intrigued by San Francisco’s across-the-board improvement. Shanahan lobbied for Ryans’s candidacy—for a coach with only five seasons of experience. “I’ve seen head coach qualities out of DeMeco when he was a player, when he was a quality-control coach,” Shanahan said. “It’s a matter of time.”

Ryans ultimately decided to return to San Francisco, rather than complete the interview process. He told friends and colleagues that he wanted to grow for at least another season, to prove that he wasn’t just a defensive coach, that he could lead an entire team.

“From what I’ve heard, his X’s and O’s, leadership, everything; it’s off the charts,” says Rick Spielman, the longtime NFL executive and most recently the Vikings’ general manager before they interviewed Ryans. “I’ve heard he’s one of the most charismatic leaders that they’ve interviewed. They told me about his presence in front of a room.”

It wasn’t Minnesota that changed Ryans’s mind, though. It was Warner, the prospects for the 2022 season and the 49ers’ potential that dissuaded him. Not to mention, his own.

Last August, Ryans met with Warner, as happens often, even daily. The coach reminded the younger version of himself of an early interaction during Warner’s rookie season. Ryans didn’t like the volume Warner used to announce the play calls. So he grabbed the player by both ends of his shoulder pads and reminded him of the lineage they shared. “Take command,” he, well, commanded.

Ryans wanted Warner to do the same thing this past fall. Only now, he didn’t need a louder voice; he needed a defense that had limited opponents last season to have a different tack: Take the damn ball away from them. He needed more, beyond the consistent presence and bonanza of tackles. More variance, in terms of how Warner would be deployed. More emphasis on interceptions and forced fumbles. More impact that led opponents, like Patriots running back Damien Harris, to tell reporters, “Fred Warner is the best pure linebacker in football.”

Ryans and Warner have had plenty to smile about the past two seasons :: Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images

The coach tweaked his scheme to make it more confusing. Greenlaw, or “Big Play Dre,” became the Diles to Warner’s Ryans. Some games, he sent Warner on blitzes from different angles; others, he dropped him into coverage almost exclusively. The Niners’ defensive strength started in the middle and spread outward, freeing Bosa to set a career high with 18.5 sacks. Warner, meanwhile, became only the fifth NFL player in the past 12 years to surpass 100 tackles in each of his first five seasons. He became Cap, only faster, more versatile and significantly better in coverage. Warner told Rich Eisen that he knew “what greatness looks like.” It wore a headset and fist-pumped on the sideline. Sometimes, it called out the offense’s plays before they ran them.

San Francisco forced more turnovers than any team in the NFL. The 49ers didn’t allow an opposing running back to approach, let alone surpass, 100 rushing yards in a single game (69, by the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs, was the most anyone got on them). They led the league in DVOA—Football Outsiders’ efficiency metric—watched Hufanga grow into a star and young players like cornerback Deommodore Lenoir develop into starters. All this followed Ryans’s preferred acronym for his unit: Special Work Ethic and Relentless Mindset, or SWARM. Through injuries, a 3–4 start and three different starting quarterbacks, one thing never changed in San Francisco: the defense, more dominant than ever.

Sometimes, Riddick looked back at the notes he wrote while evaluating Ryans before the 2006 draft. Riddick was a scout with Washington at the time. “Over and over and over again, I just kept writing smart, instinctive, smart, ahead of the game, smart, no false steps, smart, great run fit, smart.”

What made Ryans an elite player made him an even better coach. Holland continues to influence him. Riddick watches Ryans’s defense now and sees those smarts transferred to his players. He cites an example, from the 49ers’ win over the Seahawks in the wild-card round. Lenoir snagged an interception, which stemmed in part from the turnover emphasis all year and in part from something Ryans had told him recently, that Lenoir should look at how teams were targeting him as an opportunity, a positive.

“It’s like someone has a megaphone right against my ear, screaming in my ear,” Riddick says. This guy’s the f---ing one. This guy’s special. “That’s him, man. And that’s the mark of a good teacher, a good coach.”

Riddick has also done work on Warner. Many sources emphasize that his “big-picture perspective” stands out. Sound familiar?

Warner had an interception in the 49ers’ defense-heavy victory over the Cowboys on Sunday. Hauser noticed something as he watched: Television cameras captured Ryans beelining for Warner on the sideline, slapping his helmet and congratulating him. This did not strike Hauser as a typical NFL player-coach relationship, which might be because neither the coach nor the player is typical.