Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz (12.21.23)

This week, Kevin (Stefanksi) said that Myles (Garrett) should be the Defensive Player of the Year this year. Do you agree? 

“Of course. You know, I think I may have said this before, but in my mind, the definition of a great defense or a great player is when an opponent starts their game plan with, we’re going to take care of this guy, right? Like, we’re not going to let this guy beat us. And he’s still able to be effective and he’s still able to play at a high level. So there are a lot of guys that can make plays when they don’t see attention and things like that. But in my career, I’ve really seen it from three players. I’ve seen it from Myles, I’ve seen it from Calvin Johnson. And I was a young quality control coach, but it was only the first three years of his career, but I saw it from Ray Lewis. Guys that every week the opponent said, this guy is not going to beat us. And every week that player still made plays. So you know, Myles fits in that category, affects the game, helps other people make plays. We could have a two-hour press conference of the ways that he affects the game. I think Kevin alluded to that last series. We had just tied the game up. We go out the very first play, they tried to get a crack toss to Myles’ side and he gets a tackle for, I think, a six-yard loss, which really won that series. 2nd-and-16 is tough for any offense. And maybe if that was a drop back pass and he got a sack, there would have been a lot of tension. Myles’ sack sort of wins the game or sets the Browns up for the win, but because it was a tackle on a run play, I think maybe it sort of gets lost in the shuffle a little bit, but those plays continue to affect or continue to help our team, and we’re really glad to have him here. Like I said, every opponent when I was in Detroit with Calvin, it didn’t matter what people did the week before, didn’t matter how they covered it was like, okay, they’re going to have a Calvin plan. Myles is the same. We sit around a lot of times, okay, what did they do on protection on third down? And how did they do this? And it’s like, it really doesn’t matter what we saw on tape. We’re going to get a different plan for Calvin. I think in some ways we also saw that recently from Aaron Donald and I’ve been on teams where the offensive coaches say, hey, our number one goal is to keep him from making plays. Still make plays, so.”

 

We just talked to Bubba Ventrone and he said that Myles is the best player in football hands down. Do you agree with that assessment? 

“Yeah, of course. I mean, I’m a little bit biased because I’m here, but again, for all those reasons that we just said, it’s really a pleasure watching him play and watching him affect games. Say whatever you want about sack numbers and everything else. We’re the best third down defense in the league by a pretty good chunk, I think, and he has everything to do with that. Our corners, all three, are really high in their coverage percentages. Every single one of them can attribute some of that to Myles Garrett.”

 

Jim, we know what the Texans lose with CJ Stroud out—his arm talent. What do they gain with (Case) Keenum in there? 

“Well, I’d like to say this about CJ Stroud first. I’ve been very impressed with him as a rookie player. He doesn’t look like a rookie out here. You know, you see some young players, it takes them a couple of years to get really good command of where to go with the ball, and the game sort of slows down for them. All those things that we talk about from early in the season, he had that. So he was playing at a really high level. Certainly, wish him the best for his career. Concussions aren’t something to mess around with. If he’s able to play, we’ll be ready for him. But he made accurate throws, he used his legs, had great command of what they were doing offensively, recognized coverages, recognized blitzes, all that. They’re top five in passing yards and the least amount of turnovers in the league. Sometimes that doesn’t go hand in hand. Sometimes you ring up the scoreboard a little bit with a lot of pass plays, but you’re also throwing interceptions and that kid hadn’t done that. Case Keenum has been around for a long time, has all the experience in the league. Obviously, he was here. He led the Vikings to an NFC championship game. I was in Philly when we played him. A true vet that has seen everything. Very accurate passer. He does it a little bit different than CJ Stroud, but led them to a win last week. And when it’s all said and done, head coaches and quarterbacks are judged on wins and Case Kennum is a winner. So we’re going to have to play our very best against him. Our guys know him a little bit, some of his strengths and his weaknesses. So again, whatever the Texans do at quarterback, you know, we’re prepared. We’re prepared not just for them, but for Davis Mills also.”

 

Jim, what are you thinking during that Hail Mary and what are the coaching points about if you would want you guys to do anything different there? 

“Yeah, actually, the play before we were poor on. Well, first of all, they should never even get in position for the Hail Mary when it’s 30 seconds [left]. Probably our worst play of the game was when we gave up that chunk when they were on their 25 [yard line] and it put them in position to take shots and we just assumed the guy was going to run out of bounds and that’s bad business to be in. But the play before, we were really protecting the sideline and the end zone and they didn’t make the play. But we could have played that a lot differently and could have put ourselves in better position there. We have some tools in our toolbox to be able to handle it. Anytime they’re throwing at the end zone, there’s so much of randomness that goes into it. Right. We talk about guys getting up and driving the ball down, getting the ball on the ground, and we talk about guys putting bodies on guys and boxing out. And I thought we had good bodies on guys. And our jumpers did get the ball down. So happened to go to a guy that was laying on the ground. And in all your coaching points, as you’re covering a lot of things, guys going for the back tip, guys for the front tip, who’s going up, who’s going down. I don’t think the coaching point is ever included. When a guy’s laying on the ground and he had been going up and Greg (Newsome) was on him and sort of bodied him out. That just goes to show you in those situations, anything can happen. And I think the coaching point and the lesson learned in that with our guys, is don’t get them in that position if we play better. Sort of fenced defense earlier on, they’re doing razzle-dazzle, throw back and that kind of stuff, as opposed to taking shots at our end zone. We did put ourselves like when they did get there, all of a sudden now we are protecting field goal, too. We had a couple of good snaps to keep them out of field goal range, but we got to do better to keep them from getting in position where randomness can cost you the game. And it almost did, in that case.”

 

Minor point, JOK (Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah) wasn’t on the field for that play when he was on the Hail Mary in first half? 

“The first half Hail Mary was a different personnel group and it was more just a zone. Get back. The last play of the game, we were in a different personnel package. A dime package. You know, I would say this about JOK. He’s getting more and more involved in all our packages. His step as a young player was sort of mastering his own position first, and he had a little bit of ups and downs, but he was making good progress. He’s played at a really high level the last month or so, and we’ve made a big point to try to get him more on those things. It puts more on his plate having to do techniques that he hasn’t done before, lead the huddle, do those kind of things that he hasn’t done before. But Sione (Takitaki) did a good job on that play. Sione did exactly what he was supposed to do. That’s generally been Anthony Walker’s position. And then a short week. Well, not a short week, but when AWalk couldn’t play before the game, it’s probably a little bit too late to get Jeremiah in that role. But you’re going to see Jeremiah in some of those third down roles. It’s time for him not to leave the field for us. You know what I mean. It’s going to be a little bit more ask of him, but he’s up for it and he’s an impact player for us. And I’ve been really proud of the progress that he’s made.”

 

What’s the messaging to the defense when you’re going on the road? Try to turn that record around and get right so you can get those wins in the tough road environment. 

“Yeah. I think that you start off your game plan every week with the players and the schemes and those things. And as the week goes on, after you get past that point, it needs to go into more of the us against the world kind of mentality. You’re going into a hostile environment and embracing that. And that’s another step that we need to take as a team and as a defense—is winning on the road. It’s hard when you get December and you get to January, and games mean a lot. Winning on the road means an awful lot. And we haven’t always played our best on the road and we’ve learned some lessons and hopefully that will pay off for us now as we mature and we sort of learn how to deal with it and what’s at stake. We get a lot of energy from our home crowd. Right. Every single one of our guys will talk about that. Right. And it’s how much the Dawg Pound and everything else sort of helps us to have the things that we value. Right. The effort and the personality and the swag and the physical toughness, all those things we feed off of our crowd, but we got to manufacture it a little bit more on the road. And the best way to manufacture it is to sort of create that us against the know going into the lions den kind of thing. It’ll be great. Houston’s battling for the division, know we’re all playing important games in December, so we look forward to that challenge.”

 

When we’ve talked to the players about surviving the ups and downs of the season. Culture is a word that comes up. What’s the importance of that, and what does that word mean to you? 

“Yeah, I think I quoted Mike Vrabel before, and Vrabel had a really good way of saying culture, and I can’t remember exactly the way it was, but culture is defined by how you are when things are the worst, I think. I don’t want to step on him, but it’s easy for culture to be good when things are going well, right? I mean, it’s sort of the definition of being a front runner, right? Hey, when things are going great, everybody can be the first guy in the meeting, and everybody can be unselfish. Everybody. All those things are easy to do. When you’re winning, when you experience some injuries or you experience a couple of losses in a row or any of those things, when you don’t have good culture, all of a sudden you start seeing guys that become maybe a little bit selfish or guys start dropping off or you start getting all those things. We haven’t seen that from this team. This team has been resilient, particularly recently. We’ve had to deal with a lot of injury situations. You’ve seen unselfishness from players. It’s not like things are bad. I say when you’re at your worst or when things are the worst, how you are is how culture is defined, but I’d probably just shift that a little bit. Your culture is defined by how you act when things are most challenging. And we’ve had some challenging times all season as a team, when it’s all said and done, you rely on your culture as opposed to whatever, a certain play call or certain personnel package or anything else. And that’s one of the things we’ve been preaching here probably since almost a year ago when I sat up here and said the things that we value and what we’re going to try to emphasize. Schemes are transient. They come and go and, you know, all those different things. But, you know, I found with our guys, when you bring things to their attention, when you ask something from them, they’ve responded really well. And I think that’s a good definition or that’s a good indicator of how our culture has carried us this year.”

 

Myles Garrett was hoping that his post game venting about the officiating might have sort of the desired effect. The following game, and perhaps a hold would get called. It didn’t work out that way. What are your thoughts on that and what can you guys, what can he do to beat this sort of thing? 

“Yeah, he just keeps going out and doing what he does, which is play hard and be relentless and not get, you know, I think it was a couple weeks ago, we’re playing Jacksonville those last couple series. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him rush as well, and he wasn’t getting the benefit of calls, but it wasn’t affecting his next snap. He just kept on going. And I think in any of those things, we’re trying to concentrate on ourselves. We play, we let the officials officiate. Hopefully they can see some of those things and they can help them. My biggest concern with Myles isn’t necessarily getting the flags which put them back ten yards or any of that stuff. That guy is so unusual. When you rush the passer, your body gets in some tough positions, right? You get that torque; you get that lean and those things. And we protect ball carriers and a lot of things with like horse collars and face masks and different things like that to try to keep them from getting injured. But you’re very vulnerable as a pass rusher a lot of times, and some things that don’t look like much can be tough situations, can be dangerous situations for defensive players. And that’s probably my biggest concern is his physical health. When things like that happen, I make bad calls in the game. Players make bad plays. Officials, I’m sure they’re not happy 100% with the way the games play out, but with an eye toward player safety and things like that. When guys get yanked or torqued or turned, you can see some of those muscle injuries or those skeletal injuries come to the forefront. I know the officials have player safety in mind and things like that, but I think a lot of times we think about ball carriers, when we think about player safety, right, defensive players and some of those kinds of hits. But being a defensive coach, those pass rushers are vulnerable an awful lot, and I think that they deserve the same kind of protection that some of the offensive players get.”

 

 

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