Sean Payton, Rob Ryan take shots at each other
Rob Ryan’s first tenure in New Orleans was something special. After the team had easily the NFL’s worst defence in 2012, Ryan came over in 2013 and turned it into a dominant, top-five unit.
But in 2014 and 2015, it became one of the worst once again, failing to make any big stops and allowing 30-something points a game. Ryan was let go in favour of new Saints DC Dennis Allen. And it’s safe to say the bitterness is still there for Ryan.
Per Jenny Ventras from Sports Illustrated, Ryan lashed out his frustrations about how the team changed its defense, and how he wasn’t allowed to “run” his own system:
“I advanced the plan to the best of my ability. All of a sudden, we let some good players go; we changed the system after we finished fourth in the league in defense. I don’t know, it just seems strange to me.”
Saints head coach Sean Payton wasted no time firing back at the obviously-disgruntled former team DC, per Pro Football Talk:
“The idea that it wasn’t his defense, or he wasn’t in charge of it, is silly,. 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.”
It seems to me that Ryan is looking for someone else to blame. There was no excuse for the Saints defense to suddenly become one of the league’s all-around worst. This team featured plenty of talent but was just all-around difficult to watch on that side of the ball.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen ugly fallouts. If Dennis Allen can turn the Saints defense into a much better unit, then it’ll show that it was probably Ryan at fault.
Even if he wants us to think otherwise.
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