When the Houston Texans host the Cleveland Browns in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs on Saturday, they will have accomplished something that hasn’t been done in over two decades.
With rookie head DeMeco Ryans and rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud, this will be just the sixth Black head coach-starting quarterback combo to appear in a playoff game together, and it’s the first time since the 2000 season.
When the Texans hired Ryans, who played for the franchise from 2006 to 2011 and most recently was the defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, in January 2023, and drafted Stroud second overall four months later, the team’s immediate aspirations were likely to distance itself from all of its recent losses (8-48-1 record from 2020 to 2022), internal politics, and most notably former quarterback Deshaun Watson, who was accused by 24 women of sexual misconduct.
But instead of 2023 being yet another year of rebuilding, Ryans and Stroud helped lead Houston to a 10-7 record and an AFC South division crown in their first season together, spearheaded by Ryans’ suffocating defense and Stroud putting up one of the most impressive rookie quarterback seasons in recent memory: He led the league in touchdown-to-interception ratio (4.6), not throwing his first interception until the sixth week of the season.
How far the Texans go in these playoffs is unknown — the Browns’ defense allowed the fewest yards per game this season and fill-in quarterback Joe Flacco has thrown 13 touchdowns in just five starts — but the fact that Ryans and Stroud helped get them there is rare air in the NFL.
We look at the five other Black head coach-quarterback combos who have appeared in the postseason together.
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Dennis Green and Warren Moon, Minnesota Vikings (1994)
After establishing a Hall of Fame-worthy career between the Canadian Football League and the Houston Oilers of the NFL from 1978 to 1993, Warren Moon was traded to the Minnesota Vikings in 1994 at the age of 37. In Minneapolis, Moon teamed up with Dennis Green, who when he was hired became just the second Black coach in the Super Bowl era after Art Shell in 1992.
In their first season together, Moon passed for 4,264 yards, the Vikings were a top-10 offense and won the then-NFC Central division with a 10-6 record. Moon would complete a franchise playoff record 29 passes (for 292 yards and 2 touchdowns) against the division rival Chicago Bears in the wild-card round, but lost 35-18. Moon played two more seasons for the Vikings before being released in 1997.
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Ray Rhodes and Rodney Peete, Philadelphia Eagles (1995)
Rodney Peete, the first Black quarterback to start for the Detroit Lions, spent five injury-plagued seasons as the team’s starter from 1989 to 1993 before serving as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman’s backup for the 1994 season. The next year, Peete signed with the Eagles, partly in hopes of one day replacing the team’s longtime starter, Randall Cunningham. Peete got his wish five weeks into the 1995 season after Cunningham stumbled to a 1-3 record, seemingly due the new offensive system implemented by Rhodes, a coaching tree disciple of three-time Super Bowl champion coach Bill Walsh and just the third Black coach in the Super Bowl era.
Peete finished the regular season with a 9-3 record and beat the Lions in the wild-card round of the playoffs 58-37, but a concussion in the second quarter of the divisional round against the Cowboys knocked him out of the game, an eventual 30-11 Eagles loss. Five games into the next season, though, Peete tore the patella tendon in his right knee and started just seven more games for Philadelphia over the next two years.
After back-to-back 10-win seasons to start his coaching career with the Eagles, Rhodes won nine games between 1997 and 1998 before being fired. After a single season as the Green Bay Packers coach, Rhodes was an assistant coach until his final season in 2012.
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Dennis Green and Randall Cunningham, Vikings (1997, 1998)
After being demoted in Philadelphia, Cunningham sat out the entire 1996 season. He was coaxed out of retirement by Green to serve as the backup to Brad Johnson, who replaced Moon as the Vikings starter before the 1997 season. Johnson led Minneapolis to an 8-4 record but had season-ending surgery for a herniated disk toward the end of the season, opening the door for Cunningham to become a starter once again.
Cunningham finished the regular season winning only one of the team’s final three games, but orchestrated a 16-point comeback win against the New York Giants in the wild-card round, which included a 30-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter. Cunningham threw for 331 yards and three touchdowns in the divisional round against the San Francisco 49ers the next week, but the 49ers won 38-22.
In 1998, Cunningham threw for 3,704 yards and 34 touchdowns as he helped lead the Vikings as the No. 1 offense in the league and a 15-1 record. But the team’s Super Bowl aspirations were dashed in the NFC championship, when Atlanta Falcons kicker Morten Andersen hit a 38-yard field goal in overtime. Cunningham threw nine interceptions through the Vikings’ first six games of the 1999 season and was demoted once again. Before the start of the 2000 season, he was released to make way for the newest Black Vikings quarterback: Daunte Culpepper.
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Dennis Green and Daunte Culpepper, Vikings (2000)
Daunte Culpepper was drafted 11th overall in 1999 as a quarterback-in-waiting behind Cunningham and George. By the start of the 2000 season, Culpepper was named as the starter to take over an offense that featured running back Robert Smith and future Hall of Fame receivers Randy Moss and Cris Carter. In his first year of action, Culpepper threw for nearly 4,000 yards and led the entire league with 33 touchdown passes, not to mention an additional 470 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground. The Vikings went 11-5, won the NFC Central Division, and blew out the New Orleans Saints 34-16 in the divisional round. But in the conference championship against the Giants, Culpepper was under siege all day, getting sacked four times (including a strip sack) and intercepted three times. He threw for just 78 yards in the 41-0 loss.
The team couldn’t re-create the magic during the 2001 season, with Culpepper throwing just 14 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in 11 games before missing the final five games of the season with a knee injury. Green didn’t have a single losing season as the Vikings coach from 1992 to 2000, but with the Vikings at 5-10 in 2001, Green was fired ahead of Week 17. Culpepper had a few up-and-down seasons for the Vikings before being traded to the Miami Dolphins in 2006. He played his final season in 2009.
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Tony Dungy and Shaun King, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1999, 2000)
After serving as an NFL assistant coach for 13 seasons, including four seasons as defensive coordinator for the Vikings from 1992-95, Tony Dungy was hired in 1996 to lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, making him the fourth Black coach in the Super Bowl era.
During the 1999 season, quarterback Trent Dilfer led Tampa to a 7-3 record but was lost for the rest of the year due to a separated shoulder he suffered in Week 12 against the Seattle Seahawks. In stepped rookie Shaun King, who had not thrown a single pass all season. King, buoyed by the Buccaneers’ top-5 defense and the combo of fullback Mike Alstott and running back Warrick Dunn, won four of the five games he started to finish the regular season 11-5 and claim the NFC Central crown.
King threw the game-deciding touchdown pass with less than eight minutes left in the fourth quarter to beat the Washington Redskins in the divisional round, but his 163 passing yards and two interceptions contributed to Tampa’s 11-6 loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams in the NFC championship.
The Buccaneers went 10-6 the next season with King as the starter, but Tampa flamed out to the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round, costing King and Dungy their jobs. King started just three more games over the next four seasons, while Dungy was immediately hired by the Indianapolis Colts, leading them to a Super Bowl win during the 2006 season.
