The Josh Innes Show - Demeco Ryans v. Media

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Demeco Ryans got a little bit snippy with the Houston media over what he perceives to be a lack of positive coverage. I'm pretty much on the side of the media. However, the people at the press conference got so defensive that it's agree with such a butthurt group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, let's see here. Another story today is about D'Amico Ryan's kind of clapping back at the media about their negative coverage, which is true. Like, I got to listen to the audio. I haven't listened to it yet. I wanted to save it for the pod so I can kind of hear. But I've seen people reacting to it and some people saying, See, he's right. Someone's finally coming back at the media for their negativity.

Oh, fuck off. Like, that's the fastest way to become unlikable is to be a coach of a mediocre football team and underachieving. mediocre football team, and then start finger pointing at fans or media people and saying they're too negative. Particularly in Houston, the softest most disinterested media in the country, maybe outside of Miami. I don't believe that there is a media that covers sports in America less interested in being controversial or digging deep on things than Houston.

You live a charmed life if you're D'Amico Ryan's. No one says anything about it. you. But let's, I want to hear this audio. We'll break this down after these words. Now streaming on Paramount Plus. It's the epic return of Mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Runner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner Edie Falco. You're an ex-con who ran this place for years. And now, now you can't do that. And BAFTA award winner Lenny James. You're about to have a plague of outsiders descend on your town.

Let me tell you this. It's going to be consequences. Mayor of Kingsdown, new season now streaming on Paramount Plus. All right, let's play it. So this is D'Amico Ryan's basically going after media people because the media people don't cover anything positive about the team. Like, congratulations on just now learning how the world works, D'Amico. You played in Philadelphia, you putts? I like you.

so much. You're such a likable guy. But then, like, again, I've even heard, okay, Josh, be nice. You haven't even heard the audio. You haven't even heard this audio yet. But let's see, about negative media here. Here we go. No, it really does matter. I mean, here, you can see, there's a lot of negative

talk about us. We get it. I hear people try to give it to me all the time. I get it, right? It's like, but it really doesn't matter, right? And again, I talk about it. Everybody wants to write a hot story and most of the time it's negative stuff. that people want to talk about, right?

Nobody wants to talk about the positive stuff that happens. And, again, if you feed off of that and you're riding the pendulum of, oh, we're great because we won, oh, we suck because we lost, fight. Like, that's our business. I get it. And, but that's the nature of it. We keep moving forward, really, it doesn't drive anything. It means nothing, literally nothing.

It obviously means something to you because you're obviously unhappy about the fact that you feel that you warrant more pocket. positive coverage and you're not getting it. You want to tell me that two years ago when you guys went to the playoffs with a rookie quarterback in your first year and that rookie quarterback won a playoff game and you played tough against the rabies, you want to tell me that that wasn't positive coverage? Like, I think what's happening here is a lot of these people, these players and coaches, are now in this world where you get caught up in like the Pat McAfee's and these people who are former players who just ballwash you constantly, that they can't handle any

criticism. Now, I don't think that D'Amico Ryan's a soft in any way, and I don't think he can't handle criticism. He played in Philadelphia. Arguably the most irrational, not even arguably, the most irrational, schizophrenic, bat-shit crazy media on the planet. One day you're the greatest, the next day you're a piece of shit. And there's no other city that even comes close. Now, Boston, not New York. It is a schizophrenic town where everybody, media included, cover sports and watch sports like 11-year-old. You're either the greatest they've ever seen or the worst. There is no middle ground.

This guy played there. This guy knows that world. That guy knows Philadelphia. Yet he's down in Houston, essentially taking shots at the media people for their negative coverage. First of all, it is not the media's job to cover you in a positive or negative way. It is just their job to cover you in the way they see fit and what they think is fair. Now, and this is no dig at Mark, but there's Texans radio and Texans media. and in-house media, and that is their job

to essentially look at you from the extremely positive angle and never offer any real negatives. That is their job, okay? And that's why you have in-house media and those type of people. I'm not ripping them, but Mark Vandermere's going to tell you that he's not going to go out there and be hypercritical. It's not his job to be hypercritical.

It's not John Harris's job to be hypercritical. Now, I will say that sometimes you get Andre Ware and he'll be critical when I listen to the radio broadcast, but he's kind of an in-and-out guy. He's not in the building day in, day out. He's got 10 other jobs he's doing.

So Andre Ware is not going to sit there and go do the coaches show with D'emico Ryan's on a Wednesday or something like that. He just comes in, calls the game. He spends the weekend with the team, gets on the bird, goes home and does it again the next week and calls a college game. So that's that. Let's continue with more of D'Amico. To what we're about, like, it does nothing to drive our team. We just got to go out and play good football. You don't think you've gotten any positive stuff?

Yeah, I was about to say that, like, the first two years? You don't think you've gotten any praise at all? Guys, it's, what's your question? I'm just saying, like, everybody says negative. I said, I said, that's what people thrive on, it's the negative stuff, yeah. You don't think you've gotten any positive? I said people thrive on the negative. You guys are good?

You guys must be the, one with the negative stuff. we're playing football you talk about outside noise i'll say it again it doesn't matter i will agree with him on one thing like it was a strange defensive way for people in a press conference to react to something it's one thing for me to be sitting on a podcast or somebody to be sitting on a radio show to have that reaction of oh come on domico but then like like it's almost like somebody felt jilted somebody's like hey bud i'm super positive all the time and i say all of these good things about you why don't you acknowledge that I love you.

Like, this guy's getting single white femaleed here. Like, I'm not going to be ignored, D'Amico. Like, that sounded pretty pathetic, actually. I will concur. Good, bad. It doesn't change how we prepare. It doesn't change our week of preparation. We're going to work.

We're going to work our best, the game playing our best, and go out and play good football. But for your first couple years and a half, you've gotten nothing but positive coverage for the majority of the time. So when you say everybody wants to focus on. the negative and not right about the positive i i don't know that's how is that accurate when we've been here for a couple years you've got a lot of positive coverage you guys good boy now i think that's a shitty way to go about it too like this is a whole this whole back and forth is quite interesting um so let's break it down a little bit first of all he's obviously a little bit mad because I guess they beat the 49ers and now he wants people to blow them.

I don't know if that's what we're dealing with here. Like, hey, where's the positive? Well, congrats. You went out and beat the 49ers. You started out 0 and 3. You've buried yourself pretty much and you have to win almost every game to have a chance to make the playoffs. Your offense has been pathetic for the vast majority of the season. Your defense has been spectacular.

And I guarantee you that most people in Houston have talked about how great your defense is. Your offense has been pretty shitty. And people have talked about that. And they've talked about some of the drama perhaps surrounding your team. that's the way of the world. You acknowledged that that is the way of the world. And that's fine. What bothers me is when, first of all, I think these guys sound like pussies to be in there and go, wait a minute, what do you mean? People aren't positive. Okay, fine, cool. I'm fine with you going back at him with that, but it just sounded kind of whiny and pathetic like, oh, but I'm positive.

But then at the end there, if someone's going to ask you a question, like, hey, you guys got a, like for the first two years of your existence, you've basically lived a charm life where no one has said anything negative about you. you. Now you're dealing with some adversity and now the people are too negative. I think D'Amico's got to respond in that situation. I said people thrive on the negative. You guys are good. You guys

must be the net ones with the negative stuff. We're playing football. You talk about outside noise. I'll say it again. And I don't like when you're kind of digging at people and then you go with the kind of awes shucks. Look, he's an Alabama guy. He's an awes shucks guy. He's Benjamin Buford Blue. People call him

Bubba. Okay. Like that's kind of his. he's a good old boy from the south okay so give him some love there that's his vibe fine he's an extremely charismatic and likable down-to-earth guy but if you're gonna throw that out there and you're gonna go back and forth he can't just go you guys good doesn't matter good bad it doesn't change how we prepare it doesn't change our week of preparation we're gonna work we're gonna work our best the game playing our best and go out and play good football but for your first a couple years and a half, like you've gotten nothing but positive coverage for the majority of the time. So when you say everybody wants to focus on the negative and not right about the

positive, I don't know. How is that accurate when we've been here for a couple of years? You've got a lot of positive coverage. You guys are good? Here's my problem. I think the guy worded the question poorly. I think he kind of stuttered and stammered and you can't do that with that. I get it as 20 seconds. I also understand what it's like to be in that moment, and I don't care who you are and how long you've been doing it, when you're in a press conference and there's multiple people around you, I'm talking a good number of people because it's a coach's press conference, there's video cameras, there's the news, you're talking with a coach. It is a nerve-wracking situation no matter who you are.

Unless it was that time I was hammered talking to Marvin Lewis. I was not nervous at all. I had tons of confidence. But outside of that, it is a tough spot to be in. So you're going to stutter and stammer a little bit because coach is staring you down. It's a back. and forth. And I know it's tough and it's easy for me to say sitting from afar, but I feel like in that spot you needed to ask a better question that could have given you a better shot of getting an answer. Like, I don't think this exchange here at the end of this was the best exchange. Our week of preparation, we're going to work. We're going to work our best, the game playing our best, and go out and play good football.

But for your first couple years and a half, you've gotten nothing but positive coverage for the majority of the time. So when you say everybody wants to focus on the negative and not write about the positive, I don't know. How is that accurate when you've been here for a couple years, you've got a lot of positive coverage. You guys are good? My other problem is a media person's job or a media person should not have their feelings hurt because someone says they're not positive enough. It's not your job to be positive. Your job is to write about what you see and cover what you see and prepare stories based on that. So it sounded like that dude got his feelings hurt in some way. Like, well, I'm confident. I'm positive about you guys.

The better question would be, do you feel like, on the whole, in the three years or two plus years that you've been the coach of the Texans, do you believe that the coverage of your team has been fair? And if he says yes or whatever, like, again, you'd prefer to ask an open-ended question and not ask a yes or no question, obviously. But in that spot, like, how fair do you think the media has been to your team in the two plus years you've been here. And I get it. That's a tough spot for whoever that. I don't know who that media person was.

I have no clue. But that is a tough spot to be in whenever you're face to face with a coach and everyone's looking at you. Everyone in the room is looking at you. You're being judged. That's not an easy spot. So I will give the guy the benefit there and say, that's not easy. That said, I think the question he eventually asked was not a good question.

Again, you stutter and stammer through the whole thing. It's just, it's not a good question. It's the game playing our best and go out and play good football. But for your first couple years and a half, you've gotten nothing but positive coverage for the majority of the time. So when you say everybody wants to focus on the negative and not right about the positive, I don't know if that's, how is that accurate when we've been here for a couple of years,

you've got a lot of positive coverage. You guys are good? See, and you gave him the opening to come back and say, as good by asking a very defensive question. Your question in that spot cannot be defensive. And that was. It was almost like, we write positive about you. You can say, hey, I think the coverage has been pretty fair, actually.

Do you think it's been fair? Do you think that our coverage of you has been fair? Do you think your team is unfairly criticized? Can you give examples? Whatever. It can't just be like, oh, I mean, I don't think you're wrong on this because I think because it just felt like you felt jilted almost. Like, it's like this is some media guy.

I have no idea who that was. In a way, I think he sounded pretty pathetic. Like, I'm on his side in the sense that I get that it's a tough spot to be in when you're going back and forth with a coach in a press conference setting. It's not easy. It's a lot easier to interview a guy when you got him on the phone. You're in your studio. You're comfortable.

It's a lot more difficult to interview a guy or do a quick back and forth like this in the heat of the moment. You're in front of a bunch of people. There's going to be half the people that are like, yeah, good for you. And the other half are going to think you're a dipshit. and be judging you. So it's tough. I'm on his side from that regard.

But I also think that you asked that in such a defensive manner that you sounded kind of pathetic. It needed to be worded differently. It needed to be worded like, hey, do you think, do you feel like the coverage over the last two years plus? How would you evaluate our coverage of you? Do you think we're fair? Do you think we're unfair? Are we over the top? I really, I would like to know your honest opinion, coach.

And maybe he'll say the same thing. you guys good? But you left it open for him to basically dismiss you as some people whose feelings were hurt by the way you asked the question. And I think that's where you hurt yourself and that one and that's where D'Amico ends up winning. Hey, he's going to win with the fans anyway because he's the coach and they're never going to be on the side of the media unless the media wants a coach they don't like fired. Like at the end of Kubiak, there was no one that would have been like, oh my God, the media is just too hard on Kubiak. No, they want you fired and they basically the media wants you to do, or the fans want you, the media to do what they want to

be done, right? And that's not always going to be the case. In this case, they're all probably still very much on the side of D'Amico, and these media people are going to be viewed as bums by these people. So they're going to be on his side no matter what you do. But you could have asked a better question. And if you would have worded it better, I think maybe you would have gotten a chance to get a reaction. Instead, he just got to basically tell you to fuck off and make you look like a bitch at the end. And that's what happened there.