Press Pass: Jim Schwartz

chunk in there. Um. You know, we tore his helmet off on a sack. We had a chance we're gonna hold him to a field goal right there. That keeps that drive alive. Um. You know. So probably the most disappointing thing about that game where some of those uh, some of those penalties. Um, you know, his quarterback was hot. He made a couple throws under pressure that you know he dime shot the ball in there. And uh and and there's going to be some of those in the NFL.

But we can't afford gift teams think things for free. And um, we tightened up a lot more in the second half and uh, and we're able to play a lot better and keep them off, keep them off the board until that last field goal. You guys are ready to play. So yeah, I mean, I don't think there was anything schematically or anything, um, UM, you know from a you know, from a you know, from a standpoint

other than it's the NFL and playing opponents. UM. You know, obviously we didn't play our best half of football, gab. We've played our worst half of football over the course of the season. But like I said, I was I was proud of UM the way they responded in the second half. UM, some of the adjustments that we were able to make. UM came out and and played a good half of football. UM. Four sacks, a turnover, you know, disappointing.

We we we had a chance to maybe sealed a game, UM, you know, with A with a better step and H intercepting that other ball that almost got intercepted. But a loss is a loss, and you know, hopefully we can use some of the lessons we learned from that to help us win some games down in the future. I think one of the things that may serve us well from that was the fact that we hadn't been in

a close game before our first three games. Was you know, there was a lot of grinning in the fourth quarter on the sideline because the games were sort of out of hand, and you know, you're gonna have to play tight games in the NFL, and there's some seasoning, there's some experience that goes along with that, and hopefully, even though we lost the game, hopefully it'll it'll serve us over the course of the last three quarters of the season.

You mean, it was not routine deadline marker to Nickel the second temple kind the fact that hadners being a lot of players, Yeah, you know, it really wasn't really wasn't a plan to rotate in the second half anyway. So it really was an adjustment that we made, um, you know, just depending on how that game was going to play. They had used a lot of eleven personnel, which we traditionally match Nickel with, and we just wanted to try to take some of the reps of those

guys off in second half. We were getting a lot of three and ounce. There really was no we need first half. There were some long drives and um, you know, we're trying to try to keep our guys as fresh as we could. So that really that was just to get the way the game won. It really wasn't a adjustment, I guess you'd say, and the first half was just the key. And yeah, we've we've taken that approach, particularly with Jordan, and depending on you know, it just depends

the way the game plays. Um. You know, if an opponent chooses to play us in certain personnel packages, then you know, we could have some guys play just about every snap and some guys played not very much, and just trying to find ways to mitigate that and try to find ways to keep guys, um, keep guys fresh every week. It's a little different. Um, you know, I think in in that game that was um, you know, maybe that served us in the second half. You know,

it's hard, it's hard to really say. Maybe maybe those guys were able to fly around a little bit more in the second half because they had a dozen snaps taken off of them or whatever it was in the first half. Um, you know, we could find ways to get all our guys to contribute. But the bottom line is find a way to win. And we didn't do a good enough job of that tackling up there. But how he's um, no, I thought our leverage was bad on a couple of screens. But I don't necessarily I

wouldn't necessarily think tackling wasn't um wasn't good. We're gonna miss some tackles, and it's because we were an aggressive defense that we like to fly and not slow down at the ball um. In order to do that, you need other guys filling off of you. If you if you over coach guys not to miss tackle, if you don't fly to the ball, you don't. You don't, you don't have big hits and things like that, and it's

sort of softened up. If you take an approach of guys run with their angle and um and aggressively take their angle. They're gonna miss sometimes, but you need that. That's why team pursued is so important. That's why team speed is important. You need other guys to fill off of them. I didn't think we did a terrible job of tackling. I thought that, particularly on a couple of screens, we didn't leverage them well, we didn't attack it fast enough.

But I wouldn't have I wouldn't have said it was tackling. Well, that was an angle issue really, not a UM a tackling issue. And now that was. That was bad leverage. That was bad leverage. Um, but what we want, I mean, if we're if we're taking fast leverage and going inside out or outside him playing for our help. In that situation, he had corner help and he's got to leverage that

ball there. And um, um, you know, but again if if if you play your leverage, usually good leverage teams are good tackling teams and if you do miss, there's another guy there to clean it up right away. And if we're going to be good, that's what we need to be. Um. You know, knowing where your help is aggressively laying for that is it goes hand in hand with flying to the football and goes hand in hand

to limiting big plays. We've been we've been doing a good job on pulling third down and even though we technically had a couple of wins on third down, they weren't necessarily wins like that play it got to fourth down, but we don't stop them on fourth down, so it really doesn't count as a third down stop. Yeah, that was that was another one. As we look back, UM, probably like to get him and even bo Allen get him some more in there, you know, it's it's a

tough situation. You're down, you give up three touchdowns in the first half. You know, it's I'll sort of take it back the other way. It's easy to rotate when things are going good, you know what I mean. It's easy to tag the next guy. Next guy goes in and um, you know, and you're on a roll and

you're getting stops and things like that. When you start giving up plays and you start giving up touchdowns, it becomes a little bit harder just to you know, to get those guys in rotation, you know, just you know, for a lot of different reasons. And then in the second half there again it fell a little bit to the linebackers. In the second half, there really wasn't that much of a need to rotate guys because we were getting quick stops, we're getting turnovers, we're getting off the

field and um, and guys were fresh then. But you know, traditionally we'd we'd like to get him or theoretically we'd like to get him more. And practice doesn't mean anything. I don't want to get Allen iverson in there. I mean, I mean, you know, I mean, it's all about how you perform on Sunday. Um, he's been rushing the passer well. Um, and I think that that showed, you know, he was able to get to get a sack and uh sort

of played off a fletch on that one. But he's been affecting the passer and he's a key part of our defense. Um, and he'll always be involved. You know. It wasn't just Sunday, but really all year, all four games. You guys are better in the second half of the first half. Um, what do you think's happening there? I mean, I guess that's a positive that you're you're finishing strong. You think that's you know, I don't really know to tell you truth. It's a small sample size. You know.

I think that if you had your druthers, you'd probably rather be better in the second half than the first. I mean, if we were crappy in the second half, you guys would all be saying that we don't make any adjustments, or we're in poor condition, you know, whatever it is. You know, an offense sort of finds their way. One he's going to blow up. The offense is gonna find their way. But I like the personality of our defense in that there's been times early in the season.

We gave up some plays Monday Night Football the opener, and we were able to sort of, you know, I don't say stopped the bleeding, but we were able to get a control and they were able to go out and play and one bad play didn't turn into the next. There's no dodging the fact that we played a poor half of football in the first half. I mean, three drives, three touchdowns, penalties, third down conversions. I mean, there was

a lot not to like in that. But I think we've all seen teams or been around teams that that twenty one points in the first half could have easily led to forty five. But they were prideful and um, you know, we found a way to you know, to to get things, you know, to get things a little bit better in the second half. I'm proud of the

guys for that. For you, well, it always is you know, when you're an attack defense, people are gonna try to run the trap, they're gonna try to run the screen, they're gonna try to run um draws, you know, and that just goes along with the territory. You're gonna have to be good on those things. Um, we didn't leverage them very good. Second half they tried to come back to it and we threw it for a loss. But first half we didn't play the screen well enough. And

that's there's a lot of different layers to that. There's d line, there's linebackers. Um, there's you know secondary behind it. You know Riddick was Um you know he's he's a good back out of the backfield. Um, we didn't do a good enough job against him. But I think he I saw staff before the game where he's over the last year's leading the NFL and receptions for running backs. It showed in that game. Um, you know, we we

have another challenge this week. You know Thompson. Thompson is a good back out of the backfield also and gives us some same things. And UM, you know, I think the other the other thing that goes into some of those plays, if you defend him well early in the game, Um, you know, whether it's trap or draw or screen or any of those other things. Um, offense has a harder time going back to it. When you give up a couple of plays earlier, you just know they're going back

to it. Um, you know, we need to do a better job early in the game of getting those plays stopped. But how would you evaluated mikel pattersonsider, Well, I mean that's sort of the question before I mean, reconsider using him. We've we've considered it, and we've got him some reps in some of those not only Nickel package, but some other packages in there. I don't want to get into evaluations or anything else. Defensively, we didn't play well enough to win, and mostly due to a poor first half

of football. Just Washington, the wide receivers presented, that's a good offensive skill group. A heavy running back that can make yards in between the tackles, runs through contact. I'm talking about Matt Jones. You know a complimentary back in Thompson. That's Um. That's good on the perimeter. Um. You know one of the Marquis tight ends in the NFL. UM. You know their leading receiver can play down the field, can make play short um plays like a wide receiver.

And then a lot of different kinds of wide receivers. You know crowder I didn't know a lot about crowder Um just because he was a rookie last year and not being in this division. But that guy's a good player. In the slot, makes a lot of plays. He's a key part of their third down offense. Um. You know, we all know DeShawn Jackson and his ability to make a big play, and m Pierre Gresson sometimes gets um overlooked in that crowd, but he's another guy that can

move to chain and can make plays. He can run after the catch. They have a lot of receivers that are different in style. Um, they all fit well together, and it's a It's not a situation where you can take one guy out and then feel like, Okay, hey we can handle we can handle the rest. Everybody's gonna have to do their part across the board in some ways,

a little bit like Pittsburgh. You know, they had a lot of different receivers, a lot of different body types, and a lot of different guys who use in a lot of different ways. Going to go ahead the Cousins, Oh, Kirk, oh, I was I was thinking wide receivers. I'm like that I missed somebody in there. Um yeah, my son's gonna be mad at me because he's a Michigan State fan. Um, you know, he's he does a good job of executing

that offense. And when you look at the different things that they do, whether it's stacks and options and running the ball and putting them in the right run plays and things like that. He has put them in those kind of positions. Um does really favor one guy or the other. Moves the ball around to a lot of different players. He has enough arm strength to attack the whole field. Um, he can throw the ball deep over

the top, and that fits to Sean Jackson. I mean, there's going to be probably three or four times in the game that they're just going to unleash a deep ball. And it's not a forty five yard deep ball that think's coming sixty sixty five yards. Um, it's tough. Also, he's taken a bunch of hits this year. I mean some pretty wicked hits, and he's Um, he's he's got back up and played and I think, um, you know,

also he's he's led him to a good record. You know, I think when you're a quarterback, that's probably that's not probably that's the most important stat Um. You know, he's a challenge for him the first few games. What has he done to sort of clean that up there, to find that accuracy. Yeah, I think any quarterback, Um, you know, there's times, particularly in the opener, they were behind, and it's hard when you're behind, UM, and you've got to fit balls in that you know, that's the only chance

to win is to fit the ball in. UM. That's not always the situation to be in. But I think that as it goes on and they were in closer games, he was able to make better decisions. And I think that goes hand in hand with the way the games went. They got some big guys up front. Um, you know, they have, you know, a sort of a good blend of experience. It starts with the left tackle. I mean,

he's he's a Pro Bowl player. UM. You know, I think if you talk about offensive line player, you can probably start there because you know, teams have ability to rely on one guy they think they can you know, they can take a rusher out, then they can take their scheme other places. UM. You know, I like our pass rush. I think that's a great matchup in this game.

Our ability to generate pass rush, our ability to blitz. Um. You know, those kind of things will go a long way and determine who to win or this game is. And that matchup between old line and D line, it doesn't just go to pass game, it's run game. Also, they've been able to methodically move those chains. We've been good at creating some lost yardage plays. That'll be a good battle. Also, that's it, all right, guys,