Press Pass: Jim Schwartz

do that. And you know, if you almost say small ball, but if you make them try to continue drives and and make plays or make drives without getting big plays and getting the ball out quick, then we got to put bigger emphasis on getting off to fail. We always put an emphasis on third down, but we have to we have to find a way to get off the field on third down. So it has a lot to do with it. But coverage goes hand in hand with

rush and UM. You know, if we can get those guys covered well enough then that you know that you know they can make the quarterback hold the ball a little bit longer. I think the other part that goes into it is third down. You know, if you can hold, if you can put them in third down in long situations, can't throw quick, you know, So I think all of those things go hand in hand, combination, rush, end coverage.

A specific third down it was thirty five and both cornerbacks were playing about ten yards off and Aaron went right at McKelvin and hit Jordy Nelson for thirteen yards. I know that it's up to the cornerback to the side. Sometimes they're playing press or off. But in that circumstance, is that Is that the technique that you want or why do we see them playing off? It seemed like too much. Well, there's a lot of things that go

into up off from disguise. You know, if you're up so many times, you dictate what routes you're getting a lot of times those are deeper routes if you're up, I mean, if you're off, sometimes you're getting shorter routes. I think both of them are effective techniques. We didn't play our technique very well. We didn't deny inn breakers, which is a big part of this. And you can deny in breakers from being up or being off. We've done that, and then you can play short routes from off.

But you just can't give any ground you have to stick. I think it was more of a technique than it was our actual alignment. You have to be able to mix it up. You can't give them a steady dose of any one thing. But I think it also goes into what I said before. You know, third down and five, third down and one third down and two, those are a lot more difficult with that quarterback, with that offense. We need to find a way to get them into more third down and longs. And we didn't do a

good enough job in this game. Is there anything that it could be done to help you guys with Fletcher Cox, you know the production schematically well, you know, honestly, I'm not really worried about anybody any one player's production. We're worried about the production of our defense. We haven't had We haven't had sacks the last couple of weeks. We need sacks to be able to help our team. That puts them in third down and longs. It gets off the field on third and long, It forces turners, forced

turnovers last couple of weeks. Um, I think that the best way to help any individual player is the other players around him do his job and he does his job the best, and you can't. You can't the best he can, and you can't get frustrated, and you can't press to try to make a play, because that's when you start bleeding in other places. And I think that, you know, Fletch understands that it's the performance of our defense. He's not a selfish player. Maybe this is the emphasis

every week. Tell me if it is. But with a guy like Rogers, do you particularly want to disrupt early, because I mean, you know, gosh, he seemed to get into a rhythm where he felt really, really comfortable. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's the that's the object all the time. I think it was I don't know, one of the second players at that game, we blitched and he ripped the ball out to that slot player. We got a great chance there. We didn't make tackle. Um

you know that that could have gone a long way. Um, you know, Jalen Mills had tight coverage on Jordy Nelson knocks the ball away, Jordy falls on his back and the ball falls right to him. And sometimes sometimes you're on the wrong side of those and um, you know, but that doesn't change our job. We have to do something to help our team win. We didn't do anything to help our team win, you know, and you could probably make a case and our other losses that we

did something to try to put us in position to win. Um. You know, we'd always didn't play our best. We might not have played well enough to win, but we did something. Particularly this last game, we were pour on third down, we didn't get turnovers. UM. You know, we allowed long drives. You know, we talked a long time earlier this season about long drives and how our offense was controlling the ball and our defense was getting off the field, and

it was a great formula. UM. You know, we self inflicted allowed a lot of long drives off sides on third down, rough to quarterback after we got to stop. UM. You know, we had twelve guys on the pump return team. UM. You know, and in my mind, that's a defensive thing. That's that's not a special team things. Most of those guys are defensive players anyway, UM gave them another chance to come bird. All those led to points. And you know, it goes back to the first question. When you play

an offense, that's um, that's highly efficient, that's hot. UM. When you have opportunities. You can't make mistakes. We made too many mistakes in that game, and mistakes for the most part, came on third down. Liars. This year, it's been a problem of free exchag. What's that reflective of? You know, I think that early in yeah, we did. We had a couple where we rough to quarterback that we were off the field on third down, and it

kept it alive. I think it goes back to, you know, if you if you want to rush the passer and you're gonna be around the quarterback, there's going to be some of those. Um, some of them are going to be unavoidable. I don't think any of these were unavoidable, any of the ones we've had. You know, there's a specific strike zone on the quarterback and and you know you have to be hit in the frame. Sometimes you can get unlucky, you can duck his head, you can

hit him in the head. Sometimes you can knock get knocked into a guy and go low. But you know, I think it's up to us as pass rushers, it's up to us as blitzers not to put us in those in those positions, whether you know, I mean, and it's a competitive game. You know you're going to get, you know, a defensive hold or a pass interference. If you're playing tight coverage, Um, you know you're gonna you're gonna get some hits on the quarterback that you know

are sort of unavoidable. But there's been plenty that have been avoidable, and when we've committed those, it's put our team at risk and we haven't won games as a result. And they're hard lessons to learn. But um, you know, for us to get where we want to get to, us a defense and as a team, we have to put that behind us. Back to the sacks. First first six games, you have twenty six. Last five you have six. Am I making too much of that disparity or it

has something changed. No, I don't think there's anything changed. I think sometimes it's opponent. Um. You know, sometimes the ball comes out quick and you have to do a good job in coverage, and you know, if they want to try to get it out quick, you have to you know, get off the field on third down. And I mean there's a lot of ways to avoid SAX. And I'm sure offensive coordinators go in and say, hey,

this team, um can generate pressure. This team has made big play, sacking the quarterback force and turnovers and things like that. So that's going to be their objective to stay away. I think a lot of it also can do with can deal with score games. A lot of those early games we had nice leads, and you know, it's easy to rush the pass or when you have when you have a good lead. We haven't had as many leads. I think, um, Atlanta probably is the outlier

or the outlier in there. Um, regardless of how you get it done. We got to keep points off the board. And our goal isn't to get sacks, even though sacks help us accomplish that. You know, our goal isn't to you know, stop rushing yards or stop passing. Our jobs to keep points off the board, and particularly these last couple of weeks, I don't think we've done a good enough job of that. Um. You know, we got to

take advantage of the opportunities we have. If you're not making those big plays, you're not making those game changing plays, then you've got to find a way to make to make the don't know what you call him, the nondescript plays, make them efficient and just out efficient. The offense should start and play the full entire game over the others. Well, you know, I think that the way that the game

before came. You know, Jalen had a rough outing against Seattle, and um, you know, gave up a lot of plays in that game too. He's a rookie. He's going to have some up and downs. We're trying to manage that corner position, trying to you know, get a good rotation in there. I think all those guys have made enough plays to continue to deserve playing. Why don't you talk after games? I just I just do what the league

requires us to do. When you see the fact that you know, the players, obviously they have to talk afterwards to you know, to take the face that kind of accountability. The head coach has to talk three times before we have a chance to talk to you. And even though that you're in charge of the defense. I mean, can you see where there's people answering where maybe you know there's an opportunity where you could be well, I mean we could move up earlier in the week. But you know,

I'm gonna do what's required. And um, you know, I don't want to take away from coach Peterson on game day. I've been a head coach before I understand the way that goes. I mean, there needs to be one voice, and I think that's, uh, that's important. UM, you know, I'm I'm not. I'm certainly not. I mean I don't know. You don't know me well enough to think that I'm getting away from accountability. There is absolutely no question about that.

We're all accountable. And UM, I take incredible pride and what we do defensively, and I take ultimate responsibility for what we're doing defense. But I'm a defensive coordinator. When when you see the number of mistakes they're being made, whether it's a technique or just some dumb mistakes, are you confident you've got the defense's attention? Where have you run it through your mind that you might need to

shake a little thing up to get it? You know, I think shaking things up for the say of shaking things up can be overblown at times. UM, I don't think. I don't think it's anything lacking in attention. UM. You know, this is a competitive game. This is the ultimate competition, and you know, and nobody's trying to make a mistake. I mean, we had a couple of plays in this game where we didn't perform very well, and um, you know we got to do a better job of it

rushing quarterbacks to get the ball out quickly. How how does it differ trying to attack a guy like Rogers who can run for first down so you can escape, as opposed to a guy like Eli who's you know, is not going anywhere. Yeah, it's it's it is different. I mean I think that I think the difference there is that the last couple of weeks we faced offenses that had quick throws in their offense, but also they had quarterbacks that could extend plays. And you know, even

if you want in pass rush, you really couldn't. You really couldn't. Winning in pass rush didn't mean you won't sack the quarterback because not only did you had to defeat a blocker, but you had to but you had to be able to get to quarterback on the ground. Sometimes these quarterbacks were going straight backwards by in time, and you know, it's it's hard they you know, they're not trying to get sacked either. They're they're they're trying their very best to can stay out of those long

yardage situations. Every rush plan is a little bit different. The quarterback definitely has a lot to play in it. Every quarterback has a pattern where they rush. Some guys are step up guys, some guys are escape outside, some guys are escaped backwards. UM. So every game plan is a little bit different, both both in a blitz game and a rush game. The scrambling guys do put incredible pressure on you, um and particularly when you combine that with ability to throw quick I mean, it's life in

the NFL. There's good players in the NFL, scoring defense. Whatever theresing objective for you, each less than with the less than than what we score. Every game is different, you know. I mean there's going to be some shootouts. I don't think we've really had the high scoring. You have to more than thirty this year, so there hasn't been shootouts. Per Se said, you go in within a

number of minder Not really, not really. I mean, I think every drive is different, and you know, every drive our goal is to get off that field and not allow points or to minimize points. Sometimes you can't do anything about a drive. You know, you turn if the offense turns the ball over on the you know, ten yard line, it's going to be hard to hold them to zero points in that case, Um, you know, it doesn't change our job. Our job is to minimize scoring, to be able to get off the field on those

It puts some emphasis on red zone. We've been a decent red zone team. We've been a decent third down team until this last week. We got to get back to doing that. We play good situational foot off the

field on third down, get red zone stops. I think the big thing that's been missing the last couple of weeks have been the takeaways and to be a the ability to create lost yardage place to put teams behind the chains, put teams in those third and extra longs, second and extra longs, and when we do, particularly this last game, we couldn't get them off track. But when we do that, things work good for us. When we don't, we haven't held them to enough, well we haven't. We

haven't limited their scoring enough. What kind of the vombit does Doug had in game planning during the week on the defensive side of the ball and during the game, well, during the game, he's basically managing the game when it comes to timeouts, when it comes to you know, challenge, when it comes to field position, you know, different things

like that. And sometimes we'll talk in between a series where he'll he'll talk about offensive philosophy and what they're going to do and give us a heads up them going forward on fourth down and things like that. During the week, um you know, in terms of defensive scheme and okay, no, but and during the week he's aware of everything we do and we we we bounced some things off of him from an offensive standpoint. Hey, we're

thinking about doing this. How would this affect you? Um, I think he's got good expertise in that and um you know, out on the practice field, he gives us a lot of good I say, feedback, But um, you know that perspective helps an awful lot during the week, and he's old to see you can compare it to something you see. Um you know, he's not as he's not as mobile and as not as much a threat as the last couple of guys we played, but he

can still make a lot of scramble plays. And I probably put him a little bit more in the Kirk Cousins range when it came to that that's not his main objective, but he can still, um you know, he can still make you pay if you're out of your past rush lanes or um you know, read option stuff, you know, things like that. I think he's a very efficient quarterback. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes. He he takes what the defense gives him. He doesn't get um.

You know, he doesn't get UM. I won't say overly aggressive. That's not that's not a good He doesn't. He doesn't make a lot of bad decisions. And you know, I think that he's one of those guys that you know, he had obviously A J. Green was a difference maker for him, had a lot of confidence in him throwing the ball up. Um Effort didn't have him early in the season. Now he has him. Um, he has some

trust in those guys. But he's a guy that recognizes things pretty quickly and tries to take what the defense gives him. We have to take his first look away. We have to be able to take that away and be able to force him to hold it a little bit longer and try to make him make some unwise decisions, trying to make him fit some tight throws in there. If we can do a good job of that, um, you know, I think we can have a good day. Thanks guys,