https://theathletic.com/5188477/202...?source=ukdailyemail&campaign=711528Jim Schwartz has the Browns’ defense excelling with effort, passion and plenty of swag
Zac Jackson
Jan 11, 2024
20
In what was a celebratory locker room following the Browns’ first win of what’s become a wildly successful but still ongoing season, new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz emerged from his game day office and began his walk toward the parking lot. Cleveland had just delivered a TKO to the Cincinnati Bengals, and Schwartz was strutting like he was Conor McGregor.
His chin was up. His chest was out. He nodded at the group of defensive linemen who occupied the end of the locker room closest to the exit, but he didn’t stop to chat.
Within a few seconds, Schwartz was gone. The run of jaw-dropping defensive performances was just beginning.
Fast forward almost exactly four months, and the Browns are one of the NFL’s best stories in large part because they’re the league’s first team in eight years to win a game with four different starting quarterbacks. Joe Flacco has gone from a forced semi-retirement to flinging touchdown passes at will, energizing an offense that had to remake itself multiple times.
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But the Browns are truly dangerous this month because of their defense, a swarming unit that’s still trying to throw haymakers — and mostly landing them. The 2023 season rolls on almost exactly a year after Schwartz ended a semi-retirement of his own, returning to the place where his NFL career started in 1993, and to the kind of lead role he wasn’t sure he’d have again.
Medical issues had pushed Schwartz away from his role as the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive coordinator after the 2020 season, ending a five-year run that included a Super Bowl title. Schwartz, the head coach in Detroit from 2009 to 2013, spent 2021 and 2022 as a consultant and senior assistant with the Tennessee Titans, with whom he’d previously been defensive coordinator from 2001-2008 before taking the Lions job.
Though he was feeling better and had been cleared by his doctors, Schwartz didn’t necessarily need another coordinator role. But with the Browns, he saw an opportunity to make his mark.
“The very first meeting, he didn’t say that we were gonna lead the NFL in turnovers or sacks,” Browns cornerback Greg Newsome II said. “He said we were gonna lead the NFL in these three things: effort, passion and swag. And right away, he had guys’ attention.
“He’s loud and he’s direct, but he’s not just saying it. He basically said, ‘Here’s the blueprint, here’s what I’ve done earlier in my career and here’s how we get there with this team.’ He never said it was going to be easy, and he even said eight or nine games into the season everything won’t fully be in place, but we’ll be getting there. And now, just about everything he said has been done.”
Browns general manager Andrew Berry and the team’s personnel staff are on a pretty good run of finding the right players to fill the team’s needs. But in 2022, Cleveland swung and missed in attempting to re-work the defensive line, something that showed up on multiple fronts (and in multiple games), and the run defense struggled as a result. Following the season, it was clear that change was coming. And it was necessary.
As the Browns enter their wild-card date with the Houston Texans on Saturday, they now have a clear defensive identity and a play caller who’s delivered on the game’s biggest stage.
“I was telling the guys the other day that I see some similarities (here) with the 2017 Eagles team (that won the Super Bowl),” Schwartz said. “Probably the biggest one is how much the players enjoy each other. They genuinely root for each other.”
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With the occasional sideline and locker room strut, Schwartz is essentially playing follow the leader. But there are multiple leaders. Myles Garrett might be the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year, and Schwartz’s schemes have allowed Garrett the flexibility to move around at times to pick his matchup and antagonize opposing quarterbacks and play callers. In September, the Titans got caught attempting to use two tight ends to help on Garrett, who simply kept moving before the snap and didn’t allow the extra blockers to get set.
In Garrett and cornerback Denzel Ward, the Browns had their defensive centerpieces. In Newsome, fellow cornerback Martin Emerson Jr., linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and safety Grant Delpit, they had heavy draft investments in players the team thought were uniquely skilled. In hopes of maximizing those assets, the Browns hired Schwartz and signed defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson and edge rusher Ogbo Okoronkwo on the first day of free agency. They added Za’Darius Smith via trade in May, and they kept adding to the defensive line group through mid-August.
“Coach Schwartz’s biggest thing was the identity: being physical and having fun,” Tomlinson said. “His two big rules are you have to have swag and you have to play harder than anybody else. So I don’t know what the numbers are exactly, but I know they’re pretty good and I know they match the energy we brought out there every single rep. That was his biggest thing from the very start.”
The Browns’ defense ranked No. 1 in several statistical categories this season. (Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
Before the playoff-clinched Browns sat most of their starters for the regular-season finale, they were the league’s No. 1 defense in total yards per game (266.6), yards per play (4.5), passing yards per game (165.9), opponent third-down conversion percentage (29.4), three-and-out percentage (48.6), defensive success rate (64.1), percentage of opposing drives ending in punts (50.5), percentage of opposing drives ending in points (23.8) and splash plays (417), a Pro Football Focus stat that adds sacks, tackles for loss, forced fumbles, third- and fourth-down stops and other significant plays into one category. Basically, the kinds of plays that call for extra celebration. Schwartz told his players during training camp that any splash play that wasn’t celebrated with teammates would be graded by the coaches as a loaf.
“It’s easy to celebrate when (you’re winning),” Schwartz said. “Sometimes it’s harder when you’re getting kicked in the teeth, but we still want to see that, and we still want guys to play hard, play together, and we’re going to find ways to get that done.”
In Week 3, the Browns held the Titans to 94 yards and one field goal on a three-and-out following a turnover. In Week 9, the Browns held the Arizona Cardinals to 58 total yards in the franchise’s first shutout since 2007. When the regular season concluded on Sunday, the Browns’ average yards allowed per game was the lowest by any team since the 2014 Seattle Seahawks, the opponent’s third-down conversion rate was the lowest since the 2019 New England Patriots and the 253 first downs allowed were 45 fewer than the next-best defense.
The numbers look good on digital paper. But the disruption that led to the Browns’ defense quickly getting off the field turned into numbers that translated into scoring chances and wins. Cleveland had won four straight in December to clinch a playoff berth and allow its starters to rest in the season finale. Until mid-December, the Browns were recording three-and-outs more often than they weren’t. The average opponent time of possession in the first 16 games was just 27:11, and the Browns ran almost 200 more offensive plays (1,134 to 943, taking out punts and penalties) than their opponents. Through Week 17, the Browns had run 53 more plays than the team in second place.
Schwartz likes to say that when the Browns are at their best, it should look like there are 15 players on the field on defense. For much of the season, it did look that way. The Browns were No. 6 in the league in sacks and No. 2 in total defensive DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average). But those involved say they consider the defense a success more on the cohesiveness of the unit and hunger to improve than what shows up on the stat sheet.
“Nobody’s been selfish about it,” linebacker and team captain Anthony Walker Jr. said. “Myles Garrett might be the scariest dude on the planet, but he’s out there coaching guys up and rooting for the rookies the same as everybody else.”
When Schwartz offered something resembling an apology for using some colorful language during training camp, Garrett chuckled.
“He talks like he’s this big, bad guy, (but) he’s a good guy,” Garrett said. “I like Schwartz a lot. Nobody brings to this team the kind of mentality he brings. Just every day, coming to the building, on the practice field, keeping guys focused and getting the most out of us. That’s big for us because you can’t have any dropoff. At the end of the day, he expects a lot.”
“I like Schwartz a lot. Nobody brings to this team the kind of mentality he brings,” said Myles Garrett, who finished with double-digit sacks (14) for the sixth consecutive season. (Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
Part of Schwartz’s high expectations was that the Browns would need to prove themselves. They’d need to adjust and add defensive packages. They’d find teams who had counters to their attack-first mentality. Week 1 was nice — and celebration-worthy — but it was just one game.
“From day one in the spring, the (focus was) the small details, go fast where you’re supposed to go and play the way we’re coached,” Walker said. “Know the assignment and bring that passion to it.
“His emphasis was always that the only stats he cares about are the badassery, toughness, effort and swag. That’s been his consistent message all year through the highs and lows. He never talks like, ‘Hey, we need a turnover or we need a sack in this specific spot.’ He just said if we play the way we want to play, with those things and that passion, that everything will happen for you more than it doesn’t. That’s come true.”
A few days after Newsome struggled in a late November loss in Denver, Schwartz started a defensive meeting by telling his players to not worry about the third-year cornerback. He repeated that it’s easy to celebrate when things are going well, but you can potentially slip if caught looking ahead — or peeking into the backfield.
“He just kind of told me and told the team that I was a good player and I’d be back to playing well soon,” Newsome said. “The message was just that everybody has a bad game, but if you stay on top of things, you won’t have many bad games.
“It was like what he said early on. ‘If you stay on top of things and you do the work, everybody starts to believe in what’s going on.'”
One mid-December moment affirmed for Schwartz that his messages were truly being received. The Browns trailed the Bears by seven after Chicago returned an interception for a touchdown early in the third quarter. Later in that quarter, a muffed punt by the Bears set the Browns up with prime field position and a chance to cut into what by then was a 10-point lead. But for the second time in that third quarter, Cleveland was intercepted on its first play.
Schwartz had seen something similar play out before, and he’d seen lesser — and less unified — teams have players throw their helmets or start pointing fingers. But the Browns responded by getting a turnover on downs. That set the stage for Flacco to eventually heat up and lead Cleveland to an improbable comeback win, one that allowed the team to clinch a playoff spot ahead of the season’s final week. After the Bears kicked a field goal to go up 17-7 midway through the third quarter, they got three first downs on six possessions the rest of the way.
“It’s easy for culture to be good when things are going well,” Schwartz said. “I mean, it’s sort of the definition of being a front-runner, right? When things are going great, everybody can be the first guy in the meeting, and everybody can be unselfish. … When you experience some injuries or you experience a couple of losses in a row or any of those things, when you don’t have good culture, all of a sudden you start seeing guys that become maybe a little bit selfish or guys start dropping off.
“We haven’t seen that from this team. This team has been resilient, particularly recently. We’ve had to deal with a lot of injury situations. You’ve seen unselfishness from players. … But, you know, I found with our guys, when you bring things to their attention, when you ask something from them, they’ve responded really well.”
Tomlinson, a seven-year veteran, said he believes “player-led teams are always better than coach-led teams. Coach Schwartz is a great coach, but he believes the same thing. He made his installs, he made his points, then he gave us the keys. He’s got his own swag to him, and guys love that.”
When Kevin Stefanski introduced Schwartz in January of last year, the Browns’ head coach said Schwartz’s resume “speaks for itself” and that his experience could help the Browns.
“He’s done a great job, really, from day one with him to now,” Stefanski said. “He’s done everything that I’ve asked of him. He’s been a great confidant for me, somebody I can walk in and talk to and bounce a lot of things off of him. Just with history, he’s been a head coach, he’s been a coordinator, he’s won a Super Bowl. So he’s just been invaluable to me. And then, obviously, you look at our defense and the way we’ve played, that’s a big part of Jim and this coaching staff. I think those guys have done a great job, but Jim’s right there leading the way.”
And, more than occasionally, with a strut.
