Nico Collins’ Damaging Injury Puts Tank Dell Back In a Prime Role — But DeMeco Ryans’ Texans Truths Still Revolve Around a Defense With Uncommon Fight, Hidden Swag

Tank Dell gets absolutely surrounded by TV cameras like he’s one of the stars of the team. This is a testament to both how entertaining the former University of Houston star can be and how important he is to this Houston Texans offense reaching its potential. “It’s still early in the season — Game 5,” Dell says. “We’ve got a long season ahead of us. For sure, we’re going to improve.

“We want to get better. And we’re going to handle that.”

With all-everything receiver Nico Collins taking his NFL-leading 567 receiving yards to injured reserve, cursed to miss at least four games now with that hamstring injury, Dell and the Texans offense must morph to somehow keep going. Let alone get better. Dell suddenly finds himself back in one of the top two receiver spots (with Stefon Diggs) after an early season of getting somewhat lost in an expanded offense.

“We all hold each other to a standard,” Dell says. “And Nic is a big attribute in our (receivers) room. . . It’s next man up for sure. But we miss him out there.”

DeMeco Ryans’ Texans are 4-1, having just carried their bionic kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn into the air and around the field like a scene straight out of a sports movie. Holders of the second best record in the entire AFC (behind only the 5-0 Kansas City Chiefs), with still so much room for improvement. It’s a beyond enviable position to be in, akin to already being a millionaire who just hit the Powerball jackpot. But the Collins’ injury suddenly greatly complicates things for an offense still trying to find its way.

In some ways, C.J. Stroud and the rest of the Texans offense is just getting started, still operating seemingly at 50 percent of its capabilities through five games. That’s as true as the 4-1 record. But harping on it misses what else is going on. It glosses over what DeMeco Ryans has done, how he’s made this Texans defense just as relentless, ferocious, intelligent and unsatisfied as he is. These Texans play how he used to play. How he’s always coached.

Bills quarterback Josh Allen certainly wants no part of Ryan’s defense by the end of Houston’s 23-20 win in Week 5. The befuddling end-game clock management from Buffalo coach Sean McDermott that broke the brain of any reasonable football mind and allowed Fairbairn to show how he’s turned into one of the league’s truly unique weapons has overshadowed another week of defensive determination.

Just like in the comeback win over a desperate Jacksonville team in Week 4, DeMeco Ryans’ defense rises to the moment when it’s needed most, when the game hangs in the balance. This time, Ryan’s D holds Allen and the Bills to zero yards on Buffalo’s final two possessions of the game, saving Stroud after the quarterback’s fumble gifts Allen a possession starting at the Texans’ 15-yard line with only four minutes left.

“We’re were saying that the game was on us,” Texans defensive end Danielle Hunter says. “Our coach kept telling us, ‘This is on us.’ So we went out there and gave it our all. The defensive line we were thinking, affect the quarterback in any way we can.”

Ryans’ defense didn’t just affect Allen. It left one of the NFL’s best more shook than someone who had to sit through Joker: Folie à Deu twice. Allen finishes 9 for 30 passing, the worst completion percentage for anyone who’s thrown at least 30 passes in a game over the last 30 seasons.

“We’ve got a long season ahead of us. For sure, we’re going to improve. We want to get better. And we’re going to handle that.” — Texans receiver Tank Dell

This Texans defense probably won’t ever get a nickname like Bulls On Parade. There is no Connor Barwin or Shaun Cody in this locker room to anoint this unit with such a nickname. DeMeco Ryans’ defense is not that outwardly bold, but there is plenty of more hidden swag among this unit. Wearing a Thrifted Threads baseball cap and designer Louis Vuitton glasses after the Bills win, second year defensive end Will Anderson Jr. certainly doesn’t lack confidence.

“Coach just let us go eat,” Anderson says. “He let us go hunt. He didn’t really care about (Allen) escaping or nothing like that. He just said, ‘Go hunt. Go win. Go have fun. Go get pressure on him.’ ”

This Texans defense knows how good it can be. It wants to be the unit that decides these games. No matter what it takes.

Linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair plays with a sickness that puts him in the hospital on the night before the early start Bills game. He still makes eight tackles, helps make Ryans’ defensive scheme work.

“Azeez meant everything to what we did,”the coach says. “People don’t know he was sick (Saturday) night. Didn’t know if he was even going to play. For him to be as tired as he was. For him to gut it out and play every snap. It was an outstanding performance by him.

“I know what he was battling. I know how hard it was for him to push through and play through that game.”

The sense of fight DeMeco Ryans has built is real, one that takes it to the final possession of every game. Or in this case, the final kick.

“I was taking my pads off,” Texans safety Jalen Pitre says of the moment Fairbairn lined up for the 59-yard kick. “I knew he was going to hit it. We see it every day in practice. I was good. I wish they had a camera on me because I had (the pads) off already.

“Yeah, I was good. I was ready to go home.”

Ask the Cincinnati Bengals, who watched Evan McPherson miss a 53-yard field goal that would have given them a critical win over the Ravens, how much having that sense of sureness with Fairbairn means. “Kind of like a crazy game there at the end,” rookie right tackle Blake Fisher tells PaperCity. “Not kind of, it was crazy.

“Being a rookie, you’re out there like ‘This is dope.’ In a big-time game against the Buffalo Bills.”

“Coach just let us go eat. He let us go hunt. He didn’t really care about (Allen) escaping or nothing like that. He just said, ‘Go hunt. Go win. Go have fun. Go get pressure on him.’ ” — Will Anderson Jr. on DeMeco Ryans

The Tank Dell Equation

Things haven’t been so dope from a production standpoint for Tank Dell in this 4-1 start. Dell only has 13 catches for 137 yards and no touchdowns in the four games he’s played, a big drop off from a rookie season that saw him rack up more than 700 yards and seven touchdowns in just 11 games. With Nico Collins out for at least four games now, C.J. Stroud and Tank Dell will need to find their old connection.

This will not be the same offense without the 6-foot-5 Collins, who’s turned himself into one of the Top 5 receivers in the NFL, making plays down field and going up to catch traffic. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be an effective tweaked offense.

“It was amazing to get the win for him,” Tank Dell says of Collins. “We know how bad he wanted it. And we wanted it as bad as he did.”

Collins comes into the locker room screaming after the Bills win, a little late but just as hyped as everyone else. The music is pumping and the Texans players describe it as one of the bigger celebrations of the DeMeco Ryans’ era. This is what winning while still having so much room for improvement looks like.

It’s almost twice as nice. But things are changing now with Collins out — and a Tank is no longer a luxury. It’s required.