Rex Ryan still has the New England media on his mind, it seems.
Three days after getting a bit snippy with Patriots reporters during a conference call, the Bills coach did a phone interview with the NFL Network and criticized the questions he was posed earlier in the week.
The reason Ryan called in to the studio show hosted by Rich Eisen was because his brother, Rob Ryan, was in as a guest analyst. Rob was recently fired by the Saints after serving as their defensive coordinator since 2013.
How was Rob doing in his new gig, Rex was asked?
"I think he's doing a great job. I don't think there's any doubt about it. The whole show, the little bit I've seen of it, has been great," Rex said. "It really has been a lot of fun and things like that, but certainly better than the Boston media. For sure. Because I got news for you. Tyrod Taylor's coming into town and he is the third-rated quarterback the National Football League that nobody talks about . . .
"Our team's going to give what they have. Certainly the disrespect [Patriots reporters] showed him and things like that through their questioning and things like that, we'll see. We'll get a good shot. The whole country will get to see this young man play. It'll be tough against a Bill Belichick defense. But our team is going to show up. Believe me, we're going to show up."
The entire second half of Ryan's conference call with members of the New England media was a bit testy.
New England Patriots
He was asked a question about how his record against the Patriots "[keeps him] up at night, considering how much time [he spends] talking about them." We chronicled Ryan's response that that question here.
Ryan was then asked two questions about Taylor, which he referred to during his NFL Network interview. Here is the transcript from that part of the back-and-forth.
Q: Rex, it’s a quarterback driven league and I’m just wondering what improvement you’ve seen from Tyrod (Taylor) from Week 2 to Week 11?
A: I don’t know, you guys are the experts, you’ll figure it out. I know we threw three interceptions the last time we played them so we’ll see. You guys will pick out the positives.
Q: Rex, I’m going to lean on you a little bit here because I haven’t watched all the tape of Tyrod, but he’s only had the one interception since Week 2 as you mentioned, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he hasn’t been putting the ball in the hands of defense, it means that maybe they’ve been dropping interceptions. Has that been the case or has it actually been a case of good decision making on his part to avoid those picks?
A: I don’t know. You guys need to do a little more of your homework then to find out. I’m not going to answer your question, I mean it’s pretty obvious that the guy’s been pretty decent, but you guys will figure it out.