The Ryan brothers are reunited in Buffalo now and the Rex/Rob combo is going full speed ahead, consequences be damned.
It's going to be the best thing to watch on television this season, like dropping "Eastbound and Down" in the middle of a WWE "Raw" episode.
The two brothers sat down with Jenny Vrentas of TheMMQB.com for an interview that primarily focused on Rob taking a blowtorch to everything. He called his time in New Orleans a "waste of time" (he got fired for doing "a damn good job") and then praised Patriots coach Bill Belichick before promising to beat him this year.
"For me, and I'll speak for myself on this, I have an extra hunger. I have always been a guy who is going to work my tail off, and I think I have always advanced the head coach's plan. But at the end of the day, the last two years in New Orleans were a waste of time for me. I want to give everything I have to a team that I want to be a part of, with a head coach I want to be a part of. Not only is Rex a great head coach, but he is also a great defensive coach. He's going to be the best coach that I can work for, anytime. And I have worked for Belichick, who is the best head coach in football, in the history of the game.
But we're going to beat him, and we're going to beat him together. And it's going to be an awesome challenge. I need to be in a multiple system. I was hired to be in a multiple system in New Orleans, and I did a damn good job and got fired for it. I am more hungry now than I have ever been. So I wanted to go with the right guy. And the right guy is someone I have 100 percent trust in and 100 percent faith in."
That's some Kenny Powers-esque level of unnecessary shots fired across multiple bows.
Did he need to put Sean Payton on blast for canning him? Not at all. The Saints were a terrible, no-good defense in 2015. New Orleans hemorrhaged 413.4 yards per game (31st in the NFL) and 29.8 points per game (32nd). You didn't hear the captain of the Titanic trying to tell people he knows how to steer a ship.
Did he need to put Bill Belichick on notice? Hell no. That's the dumbest thing you can do. Don't poke the bear, even if you're hungry and think it will feed you.
Speaking of hungry, the exchange that occurred after Rob's quote is just amazing:
REX: He talks about the hunger that he has. That's because he had the lap band removed.
ROB: I did. I am excruciatingly hungry right now.
REX: That dude is starving right now.
Everyone should spend part of their Friday or Memorial Day weekend reading this article because it's honestly just full of amazing things.
Like this quote from Rex, which he probably said while riding around on a Jet Ski with an American flag cape.
Well, we never lost a fight in our life. Ever. And we ain't losing this one. And that's a true statement. Not just because we are badasses -- because we are, individually -- but collectively, it's a lot different. To this day, no man is going to whip me. Why? Because I've got my brother with me.
These are the most interesting quotes (to me anyway), but there's also just a whole lot of stuff about Rob trying to pin the issues with the Saints on upper management. He says they wanted to run a Seahawks-style defense (hence the Jairus Byrd signing as a centerfielder in that system) and let all his best players walk.
Rob literally said the defense wasn't his.
"There are two years that don't have my signature on them, and it's the last two years in New Orleans," Ryan said. "And that's just the truth."
Sean Payton would probably like a word. And that word is "silly," which is what the Saints coach called the notion of anyone else being in charge of the defense while speaking to Pro Football Talk.
"The idea that it wasn't his defense, or he wasn't in charge of it, is silly," Payton said.
Payton added the Saints defense "struggled" with fundamentals in 2015.
"When you're struggling as bad as we're struggling for two years, and some of the same problems keep coming up -- you know, 10 guys on the field -- those are things that just are hard to live with," Payton said.
Two weeks of this type of talk is enough to root for a Bills-Saints Super Bowl.