Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz (9.19.24)
Two of the priorities for you this year was play better, more consistently on the road and do better in the red zone. Is it mission accomplished there?
“No, still a long way to go, Tony (Grossi). You don’t want to read too much into one game or two games. We did see some positive signs that way, though, which is good. And our red zone defense had a lot to do with coming out with the win in that game. Gave up, particularly, one play that we shouldn’t give up, but some positive things. Getting the win is the most important.”
I have kind of a philosophical question. This week and over the first two weeks of the season, there’s been a lot of talk about scoring being down, passing being down, especially with the increase in two-high safety shows. You, as a coordinator, kind of usually stick to the single-high, man-to-man principles. I was curious, over the years, has there been maybe pressure internally, externally, to kind of shift away from that? And because it seems like your kind of part of the minority now in terms of the way you scheme.
“I mean, I don’t know. I mean, you do what fits your players and what you think is best to win a game. That’s the only thing we care about. Been a lot of good single-high teams. Seattle was one of the best defenses in the league for a long time and played — might have been more single-high than we do. But it fit them really well. Their guys know it, and they played hard, and I think that’s probably the biggest thing. I’m not up on those conversations. I mean, there’s plenty of ways to combat two-high. There’s plenty of ways to combat one-high. Tampa was one of the best defenses in the league, played a lot of two-high. It’s just how you do it, what you do, and we like what we do. We think it fits our players and allows them to play fast, and that’s the things we’re more worried about than what league trends are and what anybody else would have to say about it.”
With Alex Wright, how have you seen him develop since you’ve been here, and did you feel like there’s a turning point last year? I think right at the end, he started really piling up the sacks.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s been really productive over the last part of last year and then starting this year, and he’s being rewarded with more opportunities. That’s a big thing. But, you know, I think he started last year injured, had a little hard time sort of getting his footing and going. But he’s played, good, consistent and physical football for us. I think that’s been probably the biggest thing. He brings a physical element to us, not just pass game but also the run game. Had one bad snap in his last game, let a run get outside of him, but also made possibly the game winning play, you know? So, he’s still a young player, he’s still working on consistency, but you play well, you produce, you get opportunities to do more.”
What challenges does Malik Nabers and his connection with Daniel Jones present for your defense?
“Yeah, I mean, he’s the most, the second most targeted receiver in the NFL right now? Yeah, it’s two games, so small sample size, but I don’t know if anybody else sees the comparison, but he reminds me a lot of Odell Beckham. Just in the way he moves and his run after the catch ability and things like that. They target him a lot when they’re looking for big plays. And also, they target him on some short passes that he’s been able to break tackles and things like that. They have an explosive offense when it comes to big plays. (Darius) Slayton is fast, Wan’Dale (Robinson) is a real, I mean, he’s a small guy, but he doesn’t play small. He does all dirty work; he’ll block, he’ll make catches in traffic. And then Nabers shows good promise as a rookie. So, just like every week, our matchups are really important to us and we’re going to have to play well on the outside to be able to go. And generally, how well we play outside has a long way to go with how well we play in the game.”
You mentioned a small sample size there. When do samples sort of become indicative? Like, how long into a season can you start to identify trends?
“You mean trends with your own guys, or you talk about trends throughout the league?”
Malik Nabers leads the league in targets, leads the NFL in targets through two weeks. Small sample size, how long until that becomes…
“I don’t know. We’re going to have to ask our statistical — I mean, we played two games this year, so, I mean, it’s hard to — there’s a lot of things in the NFL that can look good or look bad in two games. What we’re really just concentrating on is trying to address our inefficiencies. We’re trying to find out what our formula is and what our best combinations of players are. I mentioned Alex and it just goes for everybody; produce, be on the field more and that kind of stuff. So I don’t know. I really don’t know how to answer the question.”
Daniel Jones had ACL surgery in November. Is he any less reluctant to run?
“Oh no (laughing). Have you watched the games? No, dude is, I mean, second play of the game against Washington, he’s keeping it and he’s not sliding. He’s running like a running back. You can see a lot of the similar runs that Coach (Brian) Daboll had with Josh Allen. They’re still in the game plan. When we faced Dak Prescott and (Trevor) Lawrence, both of those guys had legs and they both had running ability, but generally their offenses sort of limited their running opportunities to high leverage situations; short yardage, low red zone, you know, things like that. But the Giants use Daniel Jones and all those. So, our ability to play the quarterback designed runs and also the scrambles, you know, if there is an area of improvement from last week, we need to do a better job keeping the quarterback corralled and limited, no scramble yards. So, both of those will go a long way into it. But, yeah, and you look at it, you just go with what you see on tape and you don’t see a guy that’s struggling with a knee injury, or lacks confidence in his knee. You see a guy that has confidence and is using all the tools that he has. So, we have to take measures to combat all of them.”
Myles (Garrett) talked to us about obviously grinding through whatever is going on with his foot, but knowing how you rotate like eight or nine deep on that line anyway. When you have somebody who’s working through an injury, and I know those guys get a lot of them. Does it help to at least ease your mind that you can go that deep and have those rotations and does it help kind of keep some tread on the tires, so to speak?
“Yeah, I mean, we have a couple things. We want to stay fresh within a game and we also want to try to stay fresh throughout the season. That’s just in general, if guys are healthy. But there’s no secret we’re battling a lot of injuries up front. We’ve had a lot of guys miss a lot of time in training camp and preseason and things like that, and they’re all battling. They’re all working really hard to get out there and things like that. Like last week, we were able to have Isaiah McGuire up. And he didn’t play a lot, but he was effective when he played. Had some really good rushes for us and you just got to get contributions all across the line and other guys have to pick it up. You know, Myles is still Myles. He gets a one-on-one and he — sack strip. It’s just getting him those one-on-ones and finding the other complimentary rushers is sort of where we are right now. But he’s battling.”
Did you know that you would go into this game and only be able to get eleven snaps or so out of Denzel Ward? And is this something that you go into week-by-week?
“Well, you know, that wasn’t part of the plan. It was just after the, might have been the second play of the game, he came out and didn’t feel confident in his ability to tackle. And he was like, ‘look, I’ll help whatever I can’, and it became third downs. And not that you still don’t have to tackle on third down, but you’re not feeling the run the way that those guys, and he was trying to battle through it. He’s dealt with things like that before. I was proud of him just contributing in any way. He started off really well, I mean, had the PBU and they tried to double move him and he just covered that thing about as good as you can cover it. So hopefully he’s trying to trend in the right way. But yeah, that was, I don’t say unexpected, but it wasn’t… the plan wasn’t to do that. That was an adjustment within the game. Just trying to find what role he could accomplish in the game.”
Had a couple opportunities at turnovers that didn’t end up going your guys way. What has been your message to kind of convolute that for your team?
“Yeah, you could probably just dial back eleven months and, you know, same thing. You just gotta keep plugging away and turnovers will come. I would say this like, and this is just me, but, and we don’t have any right now, but statistically, a fourth down stop is a turnover, right? It’s a quote, ‘turnover on downs’. But you know, you don’t get credit for it. Like, what’s the difference between getting a sack on fourth down and getting the ball right there or getting a fumble on fourth down and getting the ball right there. The fumble goes as a turnover and the sack doesn’t. It’s just what — I mean, the safety, right; not only do we score, but we get the ball back. Is that a turnover? It fits a lot of the definitions. So, you know, we’ll let the statistics people deal with statistics, and we concentrate on ironing out our inefficiencies. We’re still grinding, we’re still trying to find our formula and what we’re best at and those things. And we’ve had a couple balls in our hands this last game. Ball on the ground, you know, they’ll start turning up our way.”
We saw this week, just about the sort of downward trend of offenses in terms of scoring, quarterbacks putting up big numbers. I understand for this year, specifically to your point, small sample size, it’s only two weeks. But do you think that as the game goes through evolutions that defenses are at a point right now where they’ve kind of caught up to a lot of this pass heavy stuff that teams have been trying to do over the years and that there’s more of a maybe level playing field in that way now?
“I don’t know, it just goes in waves. It’s a constant battle. It changes weekly in there. People come up with wrinkles and I mean, honestly, if you put some tape on from ten years ago and put some tape on from this last weekend, you barely recognize a lot of the schemes that people are playing because people cycle through so much. So you’re always in that. But, you know, when the season is over, then we can look at trends and those kind of things. And honestly, that’s not even on our radar right now. Our radar is us and the New York Giants and whatever else has happened across the league, everything else, that’s for other people to worry about. Our job is to take care of ourselves and to get ready for the New York Giants. And they present enough problems for it without having to worry about 31 other teams. ”
Jim, with Denzel limited last week, Cam Mitchell played way more than he normally would. What did you see out of him and how have you seen him in his year plus here?
“Yeah, you know, I mentioned Cam playing against — see the last time we played Jacksonville, we played without Denzel and MJ (Martin Emerson) and Cam. Greg Newsome played really well in that game. You know, Cam gives us that, I don’t say security blanket, but he’s almost like a relief pitcher. Comes in and gives us good innings and — another one of my baseball analogies, we’re running out of time for that. And he’s tough, he does a lot of good things for us, and we’ve been happy with him and any role that he’s been on the field for us defensively.”
For that safety, what does it mean to have Corey Bojorquez set you guys up with that pin on the two? And how is the relationship between you guys as a defense and that special teams unit?
“Yeah, we owe him a car wash. It just puts so much more pressure on the offense, being on the two-yard line right there. Just one little mistake, one little missed block, whatever is catastrophic for an offense. And if the ball is on the 12 or the 20, there’s not the same kind of pressure. So obviously, our special teams had a lot to do with that. That was huge in the game. We were protecting a three-point lead at that point. Yeah, I think it was a three-point lead, there’s time to go down. All of a sudden, one play later, it’s a five-point lead and we’re getting the ball back. So obviously that was a game changing play, not just from Alex (Wright), but from the punter also.”
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