After hundreds of such games, the twins reached high school, and the days of Ryan versus Ryan and Ryan ended. In their final meeting, Jim said, “Rex dropped me and Rob kept laughing at me while stepping on my face.”

The Ryans played all sports with similar abandon, much like the defenses they coach, which are physical and tough. They played hockey (Rex as goalie, Rob on defense), basketball (camped underneath the basket and fouling on every play) and football, at least when they were allowed. They were booted from their youth football league in Canada for tackling too hard.

Over the years, Jim Ryan said, Rob proved the more talented trash talker and the more accident prone of the twins, the kind of child who once fell from a tree and broke his arm. Rex was the more politically savvy of the two, and, Jim confirmed, the whiffle ball king. Rob, Jim continued, is more like their father and more like a pirate because of his long hair.

Both brothers speak in expletives as much as in English. Both have mountainous midsections. Both are considered brilliant defensive strategists, a notion sometimes overshadowed by their bluster and brutal honesty. Even their sentences sound the same.

Rob, with an expletive removed: “When Rex won the Super Bowl, I was jacked. I was talking so much mess. It was awesome.”

Rex, with an expletive removed: “When Rob won the Super Bowl, I was surrounded by St. Louis fans, talking mess the whole game. When Brady led them down the field, it was awesome.”

Buddy Ryan pushed his sons into anything but coaching. But it was clear, even in college, that the twins would follow him into the family business.