Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz (10.10.24)
When you look at that Washington game, what did you think were the biggest issues you guys had?
“I mean, obviously it was the big plays. We had seven plays where I think it accounted for about 280 yards offense and it sort of erased…I think we had 58 plays where we gave up like 2.5 yards of play. That’s 2.5 yards of play is like insane defense, but it gets offset by those seven big plays. And it’s the NFL, you’re not going to make every one of those seven plays, but we got to make half of those. If we make half of those, it’s a different situation right there. It was an aggressive game plan. I thought the players did a good job with the challenge and everything, but we lost contain a couple times to our left, we missed some tackles. And when it was all said and done, it negated some really good stuff on film, but that’s the NFL.”
Martin Emerson said, this is him talking, he said he doesn’t think he’s playing as well as he did last year. Is that true and why do you think that is?
“Well, I mean, I can help him out on that one play. I mean, it was a two-minute drive and if you guys saw what we were doing with some of the substitutions to slow down their tempo when they would sub, but you don’t get that right in two minute. And I probably went too many snaps of man-to-man in a row there, and he was gassed, and I was slow to recognize that, and he gave up a touchdown. So, I probably put a little bit more of that on me than him. I can change my calls up a little bit there and help him out. He’s a competitive guy. What we saw last year, what we saw in training camp this year was not a mirage. I have a lot of confidence in him getting out of that and playing good ball for us down the stretch.”
Jeremiah (Owusu-Koramoah) was responsible for two of the takeaways. You guys talk about them coming in bunches. I mean, is that something that you guys can build upon after that game knowing that he was able to put a couple together in just that one game?
“Yeah, I mean, obviously the first one overcame that big pass where we ended up losing contain, let the quarterback loose and then he made a big play down the field. So that was a really big red zone stop. But the force fumble was a big time play and had the ball on the ground a couple of times. Jeff (Schudel) mentioned MJ, he missed the tackle on that long run. Then he came back, hunted that guy down and got the ball on the ground. And we didn’t recover it, but that ball was on the ground. We had a couple big hits that ended up being incompletions that had a chance. I mean, they are a whisker away from being catch fumbles. So I was proud of the way were around the ball. We’ll make our share of those and they are game changing plays.”
With the addition of Saquon (Barkley), how have they kind of incorporated and meshed him and Jalen (Hurts) together in their running game?
“Well, Saquon might be playing the best of any running back in the NFL right now. Extremely strong, great vision, jump cut, using the passing game, everything else. And they’ve had some injuries with their wide receivers, so he’s really had to take a load. He’s been a marked man in their offense and he’s still averaging six yards a carry. So he definitely has our intention. They do add the layer of the quarterback, but they’re not afraid just to hand it to him. It’s not super fancy, it’s double teams and let him pick his hole. And, you know, playing that part of the game, now they’ll get A.J. Brown back, they’ll get DeVonta Smith back. Not like they’ve been the last couple games. So, we certainly got playmakers in a lot of different positions. Dallas Goedert is a really good tight end. A little bit like last week, we can’t play really, really good defense for 58 plays and let our guard down for seven plays because these guys have seven guys that can hit home runs.
What do you think of Hurts’ turnovers? He led the league last year and he’s leading it again.
Yeah, I mean, they’re coming in different spots. A couple of them came at the end of games this year, probably trying to make a play maybe when it wasn’t there. But that’s what playmakers do; they try to make plays. And I think there’s a lot of things that are important to us, some similarities to last week and some things we should learn from last week. But pressure on the quarterback generally can create mistakes, and then we got to be aggressive going after the ball. So, both of those things will probably play a part in this week.”
You’re going against your former team. Going into their place, how important would it be for you? How good would it feel to go there and get a win?
“Yeah, it’s been so long. It really hadn’t been that long. It’s been three years and a couple games. But I was looking at the roster, there’s only like seven or eight guys left. I mean, you talk about how things change in the NFL. And that’s a team that went to the playoffs all three of those years, went to the Super bowl once. So, you talk about what the change is in the NFL. Yeah, there’s not a lot of people I’ll recognize. It’s an important game for us because of what our situation is right now and it’s our next game, it’s a road game. A win will go a long way to starting to patch up some of the ills that we’ve had. So that’s the most important thing this week.”
I know you are banged up in the secondary right now. Do you feel like you might be able to count on some of those guys this week? Denzel (Ward), Grant (Delpit)?
“Yeah, I mean, that affected the game last week because we’re a dime team on a lot of third downs and we lost Ronnie Hickman and Rodney McLeod. Rodney had to go in and get stitches and all of a sudden, we were out of those packages and then our corners started dropping. We were working hard the whole game to try to just sort of jerry-rig some of our personnel packages, and some of the guys went in. Rodney was able to come back. Rodney played really good game. So, I mean, it’s life in the NFL, nobody cares. So we got to find a way this week, regardless of who’s out there, to be efficient and accentuate those things we did well for 58 plays and eliminate half of those things that we did poorly.”
You think you will have Denzel?
“Yeah, we’ll see when it comes. I’ll let Kevin (Stefanski) and those guys handle injuries. But I know Denzel’s a competitor, and if he can be out there, he’ll be out there.”
Especially (A.J.) Brown and (DeVonta) Smith, those guys are due to come back this week. What impact do you think that’ll have on the game?
“Well, I mean both of those guys are really good players. I mean guys that they traded for, gave up first round draft picks or drafted pretty early. Different style players. A.J. Brown is a guy that can take a hitch and go 80 yards because he’s so strong. He’s really strong down the field on his deep balls. He can body players. He doesn’t get knocked off his routes very easily. And DeVonta Smith has really great speed. He’s a smaller player, but he’s got great quickness and great speed. And I’d probably put Dallas Goedert in there. Goedert in the last couple games, we’re seeing all the double teams. Shows you where they were with wide receivers. But we have confidence in our guys who, regardless of who is out there, but they do have a great challenge this week.”
What do you make of Hurts? I know you weren’t there when they were in the last Super Bowl, but he outplayed Mahomes in that Super Bowl. Since then, he’s been a little different quarterback. What do you see out of him?
“Yeah, he was a rookie. He was there one year when I was in Philly. And I just know this, he’s a tremendous competitor. He’s a really, really hard-working guy and does a good job with leadership and the players sort of gravitate to him. And he has really good mobility. So those are the things that get our attention. I know this, in seven-on-seven, he throws about as pretty a ball as you can imagine. I mean, it’s classic. Just looks beautiful when he throws. So our whole objective is don’t make it seven-on-seven. Our pass rush has to do their job, our blitz package has to do their job, our coverage disruption has to do their job. So it’s not just routes on air, because I’ve seen that in person and it’s pretty impressive.”
You lost three in a row. How do you keep that from getting even worse and kind of stop the damage?
“Yeah, you have to just focus on what’s important right now, and you can’t do anything about the past. You guys know my baseball analogies. The (New York) Mets were about the worst team in National League in the middle of June. Their best player stunk. I mean, he’s batting .200. I mean, it was all the same stuff. The owner meddled too much, and they were the highest payroll, and they had a lot of turmoil, and they just went and beat the (Philadelphia) Phillies and they changed all of that. And the little bit that I know, I don’t know, you guys know probably (Francisco) Lindor a lot better, but just like listening to different people and stuff, they never lost their confidence, and they were very intentional about their culture. At least, again, I don’t know that firsthand, but from what you hear, they were very intentional about that culture. And that’s a tough one to survive, right? I mean, it’s June, high expectations, highest payroll in baseball, all that different stuff and you’re playing terrible. They had lost like, I think it was like 20 of 26 games or something like that. It could not have looked any worse. But they were able to find their way out with some intentionality and their best players started playing their best. And when it came to playoffs and they’re down 1-0, Lindor hits the grand slam and they’re going to the Division Championship Series or whatever it’s called now. So, I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned and stuff like that. Sports are awesome that way when it comes to the things that come up and rewarding perseverance, rewarding intentionality, rewarding culture, rewarding people with track records coming out of things and avoiding overreactions. I think there’s stuff we can learn quite across the board. Anybody that’s been in the NFL has been in situations like that where you are not playing your best, whether it’s early in the season, middle of the season, whatever it is. I think if I remember right, Pittsburgh, one year, they won the Super Bowl. I think they had three or two three-game losing streaks in one of those years. You guys have to check that math, that might be another thing I made up in my head (laughter). But yeah, I think it was like late 2000s or whatever it was, but you’re going to have tough times. it’s not all ***** and giggles. It’s not all unicorns and rainbows and everything else and those tough times and persevering through those tough times is where you get your medal and what defines you as a team. And when we get out of this, we will be battle tested and I think we’ll be stronger for it.”