With all due respect to every single individual on DeMeco Ryans' Houston Texans coaching staff, you don't need years of experience coaching in the National Football League to know that to slow down the San Francisco 49ers offense, one of the first things you'll want to do is key your game plan around containing do-it-all running back Christian McCaffrey.
You do need that level of expertise, however, to put together such a game plan and implement it in such a way that your defense can execute it. And heading into this past Sunday's matchup, even with as much talent as there is on that side of the ball for the Houston Texans, McCaffrey is such a talented and dynamic player that there was no assurance that the Texans would have success keeping him bottled up.