DC Jim Schwartz (9.21.23)
Opening statement:
“Before I start, I just want to publicly acknowledge and thank the (Tennessee) Titans organization, Mike Vrabel, Ms. Amy (Adams Strunk), and JRob (Jonathan Robinson) for the last two years with the organization. Lot of you guys know I was in a tough spot a couple of years ago, I had to step away from the game. My thyroid had gone berserk, and I needed a bunch of different operations and procedures. Mike Vrabel called me, it seemed like every week for about four months, and he never once talked about football. He just always just asked me how I was doing and everything else. I started feeling a little bit better, got my vision back and a bunch of different things. And he invited me to start just, like, one day a week, and one day turned into two and turned into three, and Vrabes never once made it anything about other than do what you feel that you can do. And pretty soon, about six months later, I was pretty much back to normal and pretty much working normal hours. But it was really an honor to be back in that organization. It was an honor to work with guys and the staff. I think I have some lifelong friends on that staff, and I’m greatly indebted to Vrabes for what he did and for helping me out. I just hope that I gave as much as I received in those two years, so it’ll be good to see those guys, a son of Northeast Ohio coming back home to play a game, and I figured the best way I can honor them is to play really good defense on Sunday.”
What is it about Mike Vrabel that makes him such an effective coach and allows him to get the best out of guys like he does?
“Yeah, he’s a former player, but that’s not the whole story. He’s very consistent in his message. He has a philosophy, he sticks through it. You know, doesn’t waver when it comes to the winds of the NFL, I guess, you’d say. The wind starts blowing one way, he doesn’t change direction and go another way. And I think that’s probably the biggest thing. He’s an excellent leader. He’s a fantastic game manager. I learned a lot from Vrabes when it came to dealing with a team and in game management, no matter how many years you’ve been in the league, this is 31 for me. There’s always something that you can pick up and learn from somebody else, and every day I seem to pick up something, it’s like, you know, what he did, he did it a different way than I’ve done it in the past, and maybe that’s a better way. So, yeah, I think the biggest thing is he sticks to his guns, he’s unwavering. They lose a game, he doesn’t change course. And that’s valuable in the NFL.”
Did you know him before that?
“No. I had respect for him as a player, and I knew him a little. My kids were in school in Nashville, and I was back in Nashville, and I’d see his wife Jen walking the dog. And we lived close to the same neighborhood in the off season and stuff. We would run into each other at times. He had touched base once or twice a year before that, but when the news came out that I had to step away, it wasn’t anything other than, ‘How you doing?’ And then, ‘hey, look, come back, have a little fun, and you can contribute.’ And like I said, I think I was a good mentor, helped the young coaches out and knew my role. And like I said before, Tony (Grossi), I hope I gave as much as I received.”
I think you’re two years there, you got to know (Ryan) Tannehill pretty well. So how’s that going to help you on Sunday?
“I think knowing personnel helps a little bit, they’ve turned over a lot of personnel, but whether it’s Ryan or Derrick Henry, all those guys, you have a good idea of what guys do well and what they don’t. I don’t know. It’s a whole lot different than just film study because Ryan’s been in the league for so long, Jeff (Schudel), and he has such a track record, not just with the Titans, but Miami before that. So he has a lot of tape on him. Derrick has been around a lot, it’s going to know a tough challenge stopping those guys on Sunday.”
They have plenty of starters on the offensive line, is that where it starts for you for your game plan?
“Well I think when you’re built the way we are upfront is what drives our defense we expect those guys to be the engine of our defense. I think just in general we have guys that are tough matchups, not necessarily against the Titans, but just in general and we try to emphasize so I think that it starts from there. I think you’ve seen the way teams have played us the first two weeks. They don’t want to hold the ball very long and try to do a lot to combat what we do on defense. So I’m sure they’ll do the same thing. They know who our players are, they know what they’re capable of doing, so they’ll have a plan. But I think just like you saw on Monday night, it was sort of like you go back to Cincinnati and we had Myles (Garrett) on the center and he got a flush and we got the sack and came back last week and they had a different plan for it. We had anticipated it, but they weren’t going to leave Myles one-on-one with the center. So they doubled back, which left Sione (Takitaki) free, and Sione was able to get the sack. And I think we have a lot of complementary parts that way that we can use. And you devote too much attention to one guy, we have a lot of ways to sort of make you pay in another way. So D-line is very important to us, but they’re going to have not just rushing the passer this week. Number 22 (Derrick Henry) is coming town and we need him on highway 90. We don’t need him on highway 71, if you know what I mean, right? No, north-south, we need him east-west. We need him going sideways and the D-line is going to have a lot to do with that and getting penetration and keeping him from coming downhill on us because Jeff, you talk about having firsthand knowledge. I’ve seen that firsthand. I’ve played against Derrick before, but then also seen how people try to take him out of game plan and definition of a great player, even when teams start their game plan with you still have a way to be effective. And I think Derrick falls into that category. He’s a guy that you can stop nine times in a row and in the 10th time he can go 90 yards for a touchdown. So we’re going to have to play excellent team defense. We’re going to tackle well, we’re going to have to be physical and we’re going to have to get hats to the ball. Tackling Derrick Henry isn’t a one-on-one thing, it’s an eleven-on-one thing and we have to have that mentality going in.”
Jim, how pleased have you been with your run defense through this first two games?
“It’s two games. We’re off to a solid start. Obviously, we had the missed tackle that led to a 21-yard gain in that play. I think Z (Za’Darius Smith) makes that play probably nine out of ten times. But Najee Harris was a good back and he broke it and made us pay. But the consistency of not allowing the people to move the chains with the run game is very important to us and it also helps set up our rush. If we can make a game one dimensional, then it can lead to more opportunities to pass rush and things like that. Just preventing offenses from controlling the flow of the game and the tempo of the game, all those things are important. And if you want to be known as a physical defense, well, you better do a good job stopping the run and we want to do all those things.”
Back to Monday night, what was the message to the defense after that big play to (George) Pickens? Seemed like it was a really turning point of the game, but the defense seemed to kind of rally up after that. What was the message you had?
“We had started, I think, first drive, interception, punt, fumble recovery, punt, and then a three and out field goal. So we got off to a fast start and then we had a little bit of a lull. We gave up that touchdown, we gave up a field goal, and I think the guys have a lot of pride. And the thing with that touchdown is it wasn’t just one person. We didn’t execute that defense very well at all. And that’s a defense that we generally played really well over the course of training camp, preseason games and the regular season so far. So it was disappointing that way. But those plays are going to happen in the NFL. Hopefully you can limit those as much. It’s the only touchdown we’ve given up in two games and our guys have a lot of pride and we finished a game with punt, punt, punt, punt. We were able to at least get the ball back for our offense. And like I said, our job is try to set them up and get the ball back for them. So our guys didn’t panic, our guys didn’t let one. But I think the thing we have to guard against in a game like that and then losing Nick (Chubb) and things like that, one of the things we talked about was just garden against guys trying to play outside the scheme and do too much. You can go get too antsy trying to make plays. And our message is make the plays that come to you, don’t go outside to make them. And I think in that play, we had a lot of guys trying to make a play and instead of just making a play that came to them. So I’m proud of our guys ability to bounce back. I’m not proud of that play, but we’ll bounce back from it.”
Losing Nick was a blow. You also saw the Titans in 2021, lose Henry for nine games and still go 12-5. How were they able to do that?
“Yeah, I think it’s what I said before about Mike Vrabel. He doesn’t panic, he stays the course. He’s very resilient that way, and it flowed over to the team and part of that job of the head coach is to make sure everybody knows, ‘Hey, it’s going to be okay, we have a plan, we have good players behind.’ D’Onta (Foreman) was able to step in and play good in his place. Injuries are just fact of life in the NFL, and no coach points to injuries as the reason you don’t perform. Well, no good coaches do. It’s just, ‘Hey, next guy up and let’s fill him in, let’s find out what we’re good at, let’s find out how we best use those guys.’ And whether you’re talking about Derrick Henry or Nick, or you know, anybody else. That’s just the standard course of action in the NFL.”
What was that the worst injury you have seen as a coach?
“I don’t know. I mean, there’s tons. When I was in Tennessee way back in 2002, we lost Jevon Kearse in the first play of the game, broke his foot, and he was premier pass rusher in the league, and we ended up in the AFC Championship Game that year. He was able to come back in like 10 weeks, but we had to survive him being down in that game, Jeff, our rookie 7th rounder replaced him in that game, had three sacks. So you just don’t pay lip service to the next man up. I think fans and other people tend to be more concerned about injuries than coaches because our whole thing is, ‘Okay, what’s next? What do we do?’ We don’t have time to fret about it. You just go to the next guy and move them in and try to be efficient.”
What do you think of your red zone defense?
“Yeah, we haven’t let anybody inside the 30. So not just red zone. Obviously, that’s not going to continue, but I like where it is right now either 0% or 100%. I don’t know the way you’d put it, but the less opportunities. Red zone is tough and that’s where scores happen. And we’ve given up a couple of field goals, but they’ve generally been longer field goals, which we’ve seen guys miss, the Cincinnati game and stuff like that. We just go and play on the field position that we got and hopefully we can stop drives. But I think Tony, that probably plays a little bit into the third down. We’ve made it hard to sustain drives so far. So when it’s hard to sustain drives and you don’t give up a lot of big plays, albeit a 71 yarder, it makes it hard to get down into the red zone.”
Was that a clean hit by Minkah Fitzpatrick? And how do you coach your guys regarding low hits? High hits?
“I glanced at it at the board and I haven’t watched it since. It’s football.”
# # #
***Visit the Browns Media Center for materials provided by the Browns communications department, including media schedules, press releases, quotes, photos, media guides, rosters, depth charts and more.***