Press Pass: Jim Schwartz

give you the pluses and minuses of every player. UM, I'll leave that. I said that last year. I'll leave out the pro football focus to determine. But um, you know, it was the first experience for Russell. It was not the first experience for Corey. Um. Corey's been around the block and um Russell um stepped in and you know I thought, I thought he did a good job. He

tackled well. Um, and you know, made no mental mistakes and that that's that's a tough duty against what they do offensively, from read option reverses to shovel passes, the jet sweeps to you know, all the different stuff and it's a lot of moving parts. I was proud of him for for that part of it that arises us for the guys, for there are experiences that you can be drawn to coach, similar situations that you can have it steus to go back and say, hey, when that

happened years ago in this UM. Yeah, I think every team is different, every opponent's different, you know. UM. I mean we had preseason against the Jets that we had a lot of corners play in safety. I mean, you guys probably get tired of hearing me talk about multidimensional players, but that's part of it, you know. I mean we even had a linebacker getting ready to go in and play safety if he needed to. UM. And we have a couple of guys on our roster that have the

ability to do that. UM, that's just that's just life in the NFL. And UM, I think every situation is different, Your opponents different, the game situation is different. So I don't know if there's anything that you draw back and then too. But I've had, I mean, we've seen wide receivers. You know, New England Patriots Troy Brown played nickel. I had a wide receiver play. UM played nickel for me when I was in Detroit. UM, it's not It's not

unusual in the NFL, you know. I mean there's there's only forty six active and if you get a couple of guys injured, I mean, I don't know how when the last time it's happened here, But when you keep seven offensive lineman active, I mean, you're gonna see a tight ended offensive line if um, if you get more than two injuries on the offensive line. It's just built

into the business. It's safety. Um yeah. I mean, he's a guy that could do it, and we were we were gassing him up on the sideline, you know, getting him ready to potentially do that. And that's one of the things you know. I mean Nick carries on the practice squad, but that's another guy that could potentially do things like that. And they're the guys that probably wouldn't go into a game starting, but you know, being able to get you out of the game. It's the same

thing with defensive line. We have different linebackers that could go, um rush the edge if they needed to. Um. You know, it's just part of your job as a coach, it's part of your job as a player to be ready. Everybody's used to dealing with one injury in a game. But when you start getting two or even three at a position and like us having three in two weeks at a position, um it, it taxes you a little

bit more. But you know it's part of the business. Touchdown, Yeah, we give up fifty three or a touchdown or fifty three or fifty four, fifty three. Yeah, a gap that was left up was that just was a second arm. Yeah, There's there's a lot of things. I mean, you know, every play, there's plays that everybody can play a little bit better. Um. You know, I think I'll just leave it with um, we didn't we didn't play that play well enough. Um. And there's there's ways that you can

cover up. You know, if a defensive lineman's out of his gap, a linebacker can cover them up. If a linebacker misses something, a safety can cover them up. If a safety misses something, a corner can cover them up. And one of the great things about about football is it's such a team game, and it is very rare that anything on the field is one person's sole responsibility or soul fault. When it comes to a defensive play, there's so many layers to your defense and players that

can cover it up. I mean maybe you know, if a corner falls down or you know, gives up a completion down the field, you could say, hey, yeah, that guy was at fault. But I would even counter that and say, well, maybe if our pass rush was a little better and somebody hit that guy when he's throwing, maybe that maybe that helped it out. So you know, we're a team defense. We take things, we take things

on ourselves as a defense. And you know the guys have said it before, but you know, no excuses, no explanations. We gave up a touchdown on the play. It's our job to you know, get them stopped right there, and we didn't get that job done. We all take that very seriously, not just you know, an individual person up the way you wanted on that, was that what you

wanted there. I'm I'm not going to get into all the all the little you know, ins and outs of every single thing, because then all of a sudden it just turns into dissecting every single play. And you know, as signing blame, you know you want to sign blame. We just assigned it to the whole defense, and I'm part of that. It's a long standing up a lot us and is a game specific or I mean, what's the benefit there of avdu It's just it really depends.

I mean with some of the um, with some of the parameter plays, it helps him see some of the balls were coming out quick. It helps him see a little bit more. Brandon Graham has done the same thing. Um. You know last year we had different players that stood up at different times. Some of it goes into an individual responsibility and some of it goes into something an

opponent's doing. I mean, not as far as I'd take my explanation for that, as far as tackling goes, if you go back to twenty eleven under the last SPA as opposed to now, do you think it's more difficult to get these guys prepared, especially early in the season. As far as lack of practice time the last practice time,

I wouldn't take that cop out. I mean, you know, even though we don't tackle live in practice, we do enough tackling drills, and then tackling is mostly about leverage and running to your leverage and knowing where your help is.

I think we had seven plays that we had miss tackles and most of it or some of those seven, we had multiple mis tackles, and I don't I don't consider a mistackle if if you know, let's say a guy's running inside out and a guy's running outside in, and the inside out guy misses and the outside guy in is right there to clean it up. That's just

playing fast, and that's playing with leverage. But if the inside guy out gets too far out and it cuts back and it gains extra yards, then it becomes a problem, and then it becomes mistackle. And I think most of those time come to leverage. I think you also have to give a little bit credit to the opponents there. I mean, there's some big time skilled players, um, and some guys that can make some plays, and we got to play team defense there and and get guys cleaned

up and get guys tackled. We can do a better job of that. Or Journey and the first two of these, you know, a lot of the the same things we've said all along. Um, you know, he's done. He's done good in the run game. He's been a factor in the past game, and he plays tough. He's a physical player. I like to temperament he plays with on the field. Also, the physical aspect of his game that that we saw

on Sunday. Is that something you had seen through the preseason tackling, Yeah, I mean we saw it last year at West Virginia. I mean that was one of the reasons we liked him. He was a tough, physical player and he has good size. And you know, the way we played that game plan, we played off an awful lot against their receivers. It seemed like every time we did get close to him. Um, you know, we had a ball go over our head. So we had a very concerted effort to keep him in front. Um. That

only works if you make tackles. And I thought that Russell m Jalen Mills, Jalen Motkins when he was in the game. You know, I think that those guys did a good job of getting those things tackle. We can go play a second down and three. It's hard when it's a you know, a forty yard chunk or fifty yard chunk and it's either a touchdown or the balls in the red zone. So, um, like I said, it only works if you're making those tackles. I'd say this,

Russell played with good anticipation on those. He didn't cheat, He didn't you know, run down and guess he played good technique and I was happy to see that degrees of success against Odell Beck. Um, I think that's very common. Very second. Yeah, we're one on one at least, so I guess that's varying. I see, not one hundred percent. How do you prepare, um, not knowing whether he's going to be well. I've about it this way. We have to expect him to be one hundred percent. If we

expect anything less, we're in the wrong business. Because he has a full week to prepare. Obviously, was well enough that they played him for third thirty three plays, I think it was. Um, he's another week away from that, another week ahead of his rehab and things like that. So UM, we'll have to be ready for thirteen. And we're gonna have to be ready for him being the same guy we remember from last year and that that he's he's a he's a very difficult player to handle,

and their offense has missed him the first couple of weeks. Um, it's our job to keep him from being and um, a factor or not. He's good, he's going to be a factor, but keep him from being a game changing factor. And we're going it's gonna be it's gonna take good team defense to do It's not going to be one guy that'll do it. What do you recall about how Darby fared against him in that twenty and fifteen matchup. Reviewing the film, it was that part of what excited about. Yeah,

we did, we did look at that. Um. You know, but you know, every good a little bit back to like experience of things in the past. Every everything is so different. Coverage schemes are different, offensive schemes are different. UM matchups him pass rush are different. You know, I think that, you know, I think that'll go. Um widely reported this week that it's an important matchup our defensive

line against their offensive line. Well, that only comes into play if we can make the quarterback hold the ball, you know, if he's if he's running it or throwing quick. You know, that defensive line can get neutralized if we can cover all their wide receivers, their tight ends. I mean that that rookie tight ends looks like he's going to be, you know, one of the same kind of guys that were used to playing Travis Kelsey or Jordan Reid. Um, you know, that kind of guy. They're getting him more

involved in the offense. So it's not just about stopping one guy. It's about it's about, you know, playing good team defense. And if we do that, we'll be able to exploit some of our you know, some of our better matchups in the game. You're going to pay an offensive line that has struggled to protect their quarterback. Do you have to Obviously your defensive ends are going to have the opportunity, but you have that kind of make sure that they don't try to make too much happen. Yeah.

I mean, I think it goes back to talking about Russell and playing those plays in front. I mean, you still have to be disciplined, you still have to read your keys, and you still have to be able to execute and um, you know, just because they haven't been very successful in the first two weeks running the ball doesn't mean they're not going to come out in this game and and try to run the ball. So we have to play good technique there. You know, play action pass,

quick passes, max protect chip. You know, there's a lot of things that can go into you know, layer in the pass rush and you know, down in distance and score means a lawful lot to it too. You know, you rush a lot different when it's third and two than you do one third down and eleven and pin your ears back a little bit on third and eleven.

Third and two. You got to play everything. So UM, you know, I think that not only then it's not just an important match up our d line against the role line, but it's everybody else's ability to um, you know, to be able to to set that match up up up. I guess, I guess that's the way to say. Its seven or eight times in two games against them last year. Is that more because of Elie's ability to defend, to go up against the blitz or eat the confidence of

your line or well, there's a lot. I don't want to get too much into specifics, but um, last year in particular, he was calling just about everything out the line of scrimmage, and it was a spread set, a lot of three wide receiver sets, and you know, in order for you to blitz, you got to declare. And you know he changed to play with five seconds left on the play clock. UM, So you know that that layers up and makes it a little bit more difficult to um to blitz or tow blitz out of different looks.

But you know, sometimes sometimes you're not blitzing just to sack to quarterback. You're blitzing to get the ball out of his hand quick. And sometimes you feel like if you can cover, you can make them hold it a little bit longer and then maybe by time for your past rush to get home. Um. I thought our pass rushing that second game last year had a good impact

on that game. For first game too, but I think second game, you know, we were we had our hands full in coverage and there was a couple of key moments that that game that guys came through with big rushes and it helped us be able to get to win. It helped us be able to get the interception that gave us a lead early in that game. You know, everybody looks at Malcolm intercepting that ball. That doesn't just happen on an island. It just doesn't happen by itself.

It's team game, and pass rush had a lot to do with that. Also, you talked about bobs driding different players. What change is playing wh he's out there. He's an experienced player, just like Rodney's smart um, you know, and we had we went into both games having a package where both of those guys would have been on the field at the same time. Um, we obviously won't have that up if Rodney's not able to play. But you know, I think you know, both guys were corners in the past.

There's a lot of similarities. You know, Um, Corey's been around a little bit longer. But we have confidence in both of those guys being able to execute, you know, whatever we wanted, and we liked them both enough that we had package to be able to match up some of the offensive stuff with both of those guys. On a few start going to quick passing gain to counter your your pass rush and the nickel and diming up the field. What what's what's the defensive philosophy to counter that? Well,

there's there's a lot of different things. I mean, first is you've got to keep those short passes from becoming long passes. And you gotta you know, somewhere along the line if they're going five yards at a time, Um, you know, there's something to knock them off and knock down pass. A forced holding penalty, you know something. I mean, it's the the quintessential men but don't break thing. Um, you know, So there's ways, I mean you know, you can play tight coverage and and and put that opens

up a completely different can of worms. UM. Yeah, it's it's it's so different. But that's that's one thing that UM. You know, Washington worked hard to try to do. You know, Kansas City was doing. Um, you know, it's hard. It's hard to throw quick every third down. You know, I think it's all last night. Sometimes you throw a quick on third, on third or fourth down, you can't make the sticks. You know that happened. That happened a couple

of times last night. So that can play into our hands as well being able to limit I mean it's it's a well known stat in the NFL of how much explosive plays correlate with winning. Supposed to plays on offense, I'm supposed to plays allowed on defense. Um, you know that that's a that's a big thing. And if you can force teams to consistently drive played good on third down, you got chances to you know, get off the field.

UM can't give him anything for free. I was also you know, I'm never pleased with a loss, but I am. I am. I continue to be encouraged by UM by our discipline defensively Again, two fouls and UM, you know, I don't know where we are in the league. I don't I don't really judge other teams, but you know we had two in the first game and two in this one, and um, you know we one was offset and the other one was five yards. So we allowed no first dounds off of that, and I'm encouraged by that.

We need to keep that going. Also, your second defensive line group did I love they made an impact in the game. You know, I think that all those guys you know, can step in and play. There was a UM play early in that game. We forced Alex to um go out of a sort of in a long drive and he's an elusive guy, and we dropped a defensive tackle into coverage. It was Elijah Qualls, and I did a great job number one executing this coverage and then was able to show a little bit of speed

to keep the quarterback from getting the first down. Um. You know, we talked about Chris Long getting a sack and having an impact in the game. Derek Barnett, um bo Allen, you know, all those guys are very important to us as a general. M you feel like you had any kind of advantage you're going where the play caller Mac, who was the adensive, cool leader of Amity Collage. You are single and focused any kind of we can

think about it. To take the truth, I mean, we have a hands full with We're just trying to trying to play the opponent that we're playing. Whoever the call to place calling from, whether it's the quarterback making the call, whether it's the offensive coordinator, where it's somebody in the booth on the sideline. You know, we can't control that. We just line up and play. Any great