Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz (10.12.23)
Tell me about the battle challenge that lies ahead and the chess match.
“Yeah, you know, I think a little bit is too much is made of chess matches. I play a little bit of chess and, you know, the pieces always move exactly where they’re supposed to move, right? You think you got checkmate, but your queen comes up one space short. So there’s a human element to the whole thing, and we’re just trying to put our players in the best position to be able to make plays, but certainly have a lot of respect for Kyle (Shanahan), gone against him for a long time. I think maybe 2007, 2008, when I was with the (Tennessee) Titans, might have been the first time he was down in Houston. I think my greatest compliment to coaches is that they evolve over time. And I think that what we defended back in 2008 was a little bit different than Houston. What he did in Washington, what he did in Cleveland, here what he did in Atlanta, and what he’s doing in San Francisco. And he does a good job of scheming for his players. And I think that’s probably the biggest thing, you’re not out there trying to stop a playcaller. You’re out there trying to stop his players, and we’re going to have a work cut out for them. They’re a very efficient offense. They run the ball as well as they pass it. They’re not a one-dimensional team. They can make big plays. They can also throw short passes and run after the catch. They have a lot of outstanding run after the catch players, whoever it is, (Deebo) Samuel and (Christian) McCaffrey. I saw a stat this week where they have one of the shortest depth of route in the whole NFL, but they lead the NFL or their second in the NFL in yards per pass. So it tells you that short passes are creating longer plays. So we’re going to tackle well, we’re going to tackle a lot better than we did against the (Baltimore) Ravens. That was a big part of that game.”
You’ve seen his offenses over the years, is this the best supporting cast he’s had?
“I don’t know, Atlanta. He had a pretty good cast with Julio (Jones) and Matt Ryan and a lot of other guys in there, (Mohamed) Sanu. And I don’t know, he’s had a lot of good players. This group stands alone. Every group, every year, stands alone. But I think probably the biggest thing that stands out is they have so many multipurpose players, multi-position players. I think a common thing is people say positionless players. These guys aren’t positionless. They have multi positions. McCaffrey can be a wide out. He can be a running back. Deebo can be a wide out. He can be a running back. (George) Kittle can be a tight end. He can be a wide out. (Kyle) Juszcyk can be a fullback. He can be a tight end. He can be a wide out. He can carry the ball. They put a lot of I won’t say stress, but they make it where you just can’t defend one thing. They can be in 21 personnel, two backs, tight end and two wideouts, and they can make you defend twelve alignments, eleven alignments, empty alignments, two back alignments. And they’ll all use their wide receivers to block. Their wide receivers do an outstanding job of blocking. So we’re going to have to play our game and accentuate our guys. We have some multipurpose players that can do a lot of things. It’s going to be a great matchup. This is NFL football at its finest. This is an outstanding offense, a good defense. We’ll be ready for it.”
You just mentioned the Baltimore game. Was it you guys missing tackles, or did they see something in the first three games that they were able to maybe find a weakness?
“We did miss a lot of tackles. I think we had about 120 yards after missed tackles in that game. And I bear some responsibility, that’s not all players. I can get them closer to the play, and I think that can help them. But when it was all said and done, Jeff (Schudel), my biggest disappointment from that game was right after the first turnover. We had started the game. We looked like us, three and out. Three and out. We gave up a couple of plays in there, but, man, we were flying around and we looked like us. And then we took the field after the turnover, and we had a missed assignment, and we give up a touchdown on the very first play. And I think that’s probably the biggest disappointment. You had a rookie at quarterback. We needed to have his back. We needed to hold that to a field goal right there. And in my mind, that really changed the game. We could have gained some momentum. We got a red zone stop right there. Held him to a field goal. And I think it could have been different. We came back the next drive. We got a turnover, but we didn’t play great in that drive. So that was probably the biggest thing. When the team needs us the most, we have to be able to respond. And I didn’t like the way that we did. The players didn’t like the way that went. We have a lot of pride and we need to do better than that. And also, I didn’t like the way we finished, or we didn’t like the way we finished after that last, it probably doesn’t affect the game, but we gave up a couple of first downs at the end of that game where we just got squirrely. We came out of coverage and were undisciplined on some stuff and we didn’t look like us. We need to look like us. When we’re at our best, it looks like 15 guys are on the field, right. Guys are flying around and playing together, and we might miss tackles, but the next guys are there to clean them up. So that’s probably the biggest thing. They did some scheme stuff that we adjusted, actually, in the second half on a lot of it. But like I said, I think our job is to have the offenses’ back when they make a mistake. I’m sure they feel like their job is to have our back when we give up a play. And that was probably the biggest thing in that game. We turned the ball over and we didn’t do our job. We could hold them to a field goal right there, and I think that game changes. So we have a lot of pride as a group. Our guys aren’t satisfied with their performance, and they know they have a big challenge this week and they’re looking to make amends for it.”
The system seems to suit (Brock) Purdy really well. What have been your impressions of him?
“Well, I think it goes back Tony’s (Grossi) question. It’s just Coach Shanahan putting his guys in the best position. It’s changed a little bit depending on who his quarterbacks have been, the way that they run things. And Purdy is an extremely accurate passer. He’s got a quick release and he anticipates very well, and he works the ball around. I think a little bit overplayed is the whole point guard thing. I mean, there’s a reason it’s a cliche is because he does look like a point guard out there. He’s finding the open guy. He’s getting rid of the ball quick. He’s putting the ball in position for guys to be able to run after the catch.”
Myles Garrett going up against, at least part of the time, Trent Williams. Just how amazing is Trent, and what kind of battle do you see between those two guys coming up?
“Yeah, Tony mentioned a number of times I’ve gone against Kyle Shanahan. Trent Williams has been on the opposite side a lot of times, and that’s a tough battle. He’s been a premier player in this league for a long time. I think he’s 14 or 15 years. It seems like it’s been longer than that. Seems like he’s been around forever. Good in the run game and the pass game. It’s not just the pass game that matchup is going to be important. They’re a balanced team and we need to do a good job against the run. So it’s really never about just a personal one on one matchup. They do a lot of different things scheme wise, we have to do our job within the scheme. But again, I talk about great matchups, and this is one I think this is NFL football, and within that you have individual matchups, and I’m sure that’s one that the fans will be watching, and we’ll be watching.”
How different is their use of motion before the snap and how difficult is that for you guys?
“Yeah, I mean, about 80% of their snaps include some sort of shift or motion, including double shifts in motion. And I think on defense, we do a lot of things to try to change the picture for the quarterback after the snap. Right? I think that’s important to us just to try to buy us a little bit of time for our pass rush to get home. And sometimes it looks like, man, all of a sudden it’s zone, or it looks like zone, it’s man, it looks like you’re playing off and all of a sudden you’re up or it’s blitz, a surprise blitz, or you’re up in a blitz and it’s a bail. Well, they do the exact same thing with their shifts and motions. They present you a formation and then all of a sudden, at the last second, change it to something else. It puts pressure on your communication and your assignment. So I think that we have a lot of challenges in the game, but dealing with that kind of stuff is important. I would say this, it’s much more difficult for them to do that on the road. And when the fans are loud and it’s hard for them, they’ve had a couple of road games that the crowd really wasn’t in it or got taken out of it. And we always take a lot of pride in trying to keep our fans engaged. And they can have an impact on the game because that stuff is so well timed and it’s so well coordinated that if they’re having a hard time with their communication, it can negate some of that. But that’s a huge part of this game, is dealing with all that different stuff. And it’s not just on first and second down. It’s not just run game. It carries over to the passing game. It carries over to third down. It’s one of the things that they do. And our job is to try to find a way to defend it.”
First play of the year. We remember Za’Darius (Smith) affected that first game of the year with the very first play. What’s he been like since then?
“The before the – I guess it was the Titans game. He was having a hard time warming up. I don’t know if you guys saw that he had some back spasms before that game and things like that. But we don’t just judge ourselves on rushing the passer. It’s playing the run. And then also we view ourselves as a group up front. And I think you’ve seen this a few times this year. Maybe one guy creates the pressure and somebody else makes the sack and we have an unselfish group up front. And Z’s had some pressures that other people have cleaned up the sacks. Does that change the end of the play? Probably not. Does it look different in the stat book? Yeah, but when you have unselfish players and guys that only care about results like Z does. I think it makes it a little bit easier to deal with. We have take advantage of the opportunities that we have, but particularly up front, we play as a group, and as long as somebody’s making the play, we celebrate that, and we really don’t care who it is.”
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