New Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz figures to be the most important new person in the Browns organization in 2023. (TheLandOnDemand)
Is Jim Schwartz the No. 1 new addition to the Browns?
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
One in a series of articles previewing Browns training camp …
The Browns added 14 veteran free agents and seven draft picks to their roster in an aggressive offseason that accentuated their urgency to return to the playoffs.
But the one addition who should have the biggest impact of all is Jim Schwartz, who was named defensive coordinator to succeed Joe Woods on Jan. 17 – two months before the first new players were signed in free agency.
It’s the first major change to his coaching staff made by Kevin Stefanski in his four years as Browns head coach. The fact Schwartz has five years experience as Detroit Lions head coach (29-51 record, one playoff appearance) makes him the logical choice to succeed Stefanski if things go south really fast. It’s an unspoken reason for hiring Schwartz rather than a younger, less-experienced coordinator.
Schwartz, 56, has come a long way since serving as a scouting assistant to Bill Belichick with the Browns in the 1990s. He established himself as one of the league’s best coordinators, a proven proponent of attacking offenses with an aggressive front four.
Schwartz makes stars out of defensive linemen. He feels defeated if forced to blitz to apply quarterback pressure. His cornerbacks play primarily man coverage and every unit of his defense plays with an attack mentality. His defenses are physical. His players love playing for him.
What does this mean to a Browns defense that finished 25th against the run, 21st in sacks, and 19th in stopping teams on third down?
To a defense that allowed Pittsburgh rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett to conduct a 14-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to seal a 28-14 Browns loss in Pittsburgh in the 2022 season finale?
“He tells us, we’re going to lead the league in bad-assery,” cornerback Greg Newsome said on the Really Big Show on 850 ESPN Cleveland last month. “That’s just our motto. We’re going to be tough.”
Accountability
“Bad-assery” is Schwartz’s version of “Come get sum,” the motto of former Browns coordinator Gregg Williams. Some Browns’ followers might still lament the departure of Williams after he led the Browns to a 5-3 record as interim coach after Hue Jackson was fired midway through the 2019 season. His defenses were physical and tough.
Williams and Schwartz worked together two seasons with the Tennessee Titans, and they are friends. Schwartz succeeded Williams as Titans coordinator when Williams left in 2001 to become head coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Browns safety Rodney McLeod played four years under Williams with the St. Louis Rams and five years under Schwartz with the Philadelphia Eagles. He considers both coaches “difference-makers.”
“[Both] have the ability to be able to change the mindset of a group of men, and that’s hard to do,” McLeod said. “Kind of leading and working towards one common goal.”
Along with communication breakdowns in the secondary and mind-boggling failures on third downs, a major deficiency with Woods was a lack of accountability. Starters who didn’t perform or who screwed up off the field were allowed to hold down their positions. That hasn’t been the case in Schwartz’s history with teams.
McLeod says holding players accountable is one of Schwartz’s primary attributes.
“[He] demands the most out of you. He holds everybody to a very high standard and that’s what you need in this business to win,” McLeood said. “And so I think he’s already established that here. And you could tell he’s a culture-shifter. And so I feel like that’s what’s needed. Like I said, he’s going to demand excellence and just is an amazing guy.”
Let’s get physical
In the OTA and minicamp season, Schwartz’s presence was profound.
Off the field, he sought to establish relationships with his new players so that they would trust him as a coach. On the field, he wore the No. 51 jersey of linebacker Jordan Kunaszyk to pay homage to Kunaszyk as a player who was doing things the right way.
Scjwartz lined himself on the practice field just beyond the center in 7-on-7 drills so that he could hear his players communicate.
“I feel like sometimes he might be the 12th man on the field,” said new defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson.
Schwartz doesn’t blow smoke. At minicamp, he wouldn’t make grandiose predictions of his final product on defense.
“It’s too soon to really get a judge of where we are when you’re not full speed,” Schwartz said in June. “There’s things that you can do with walkthroughs. There’s things you can do, tempo and things like that. But to really play defense, you need to be physical. That’s the number one thing. You need to be physical and we can’t do that now.
“So it’s really hard to say where we are. We’re making progress on schemes and communication. We were pretty crappy early on. We needed a little kick in the butt to get going a little bit [today]. But communication, getting some things under our feet. We’re getting a little bit better there, but the road will hit the rubber when training camp comes and we can play with toughness and effort and physicality.”
One thing very evident in the OTA and minicamp practices was the attack mentality Schwartz sought to embed in the defense, starting with the defensive line. D-line drills were loud and physical.
“Right now it’s just trying to get mentality,” Schwartz said at the spring OTAs. “It’s really, now, it’s more coming from meeting room, things that we’re preaching and individual periods. But again, we have specific rules that we have to abide by here. And we’re trying to keep the contact down and we’re trying to work with the other players.
“It’s not a competition of who can win the spot. All those things that are things that defenses do. What you see in team periods, what you see, even in seven-on-seven periods, that’s not where we’re going to develop that. We’ll develop it individual periods and then we’ll develop that through training camp mentality. Just setting a standard. We have some physical players and we want to play with effort. We want to be physical and we want to have a little personality. Those are the things that we’re going to emphasize as we go. All the good defenses have those things.”
