Jim Schwartz Press Conference October 26, 2023
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00:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:08 >> All right, did I misremember this late October weather?
00:10 >> [LAUGH] >> Thank you.
00:14 >> I think I might have had some frost on the-
00:18 >> [INAUDIBLE]
00:19 >> Yeah, yeah.
00:22 Well, love it.
00:24 All right, guys.
00:26 >> What do you see on Gino Smith?
00:29 >> I see a veteran player that sort of survived some of the bumps of an early,
00:34 of some early setbacks.
00:37 I think he's an inspiration to a lot of players that don't have immediate success.
00:41 But his stick-to-it-iveness, his ability to keep working,
00:46 persevere and obviously improve have shown these last couple years.
00:52 I remember having a conversation with him after a game he was playing with the Jets.
00:56 And he was back up and hadn't played.
01:00 And I told him, I said, look, eventually you're gonna get another chance,
01:05 make sure you're ready for it.
01:07 Cuz I played him a couple times early in his career, and he certainly has.
01:11 We're gonna have our work cut out for him.
01:13 He's throwing the ball very well.
01:15 He's really efficient, very accurate with his passes, high completion percentage.
01:21 And I think that he's really a good role model, a good inspiration for
01:26 a lot of players that may have struggled early in their career.
01:33 And if they stay on track and keep improving,
01:36 that they can eventually have success.
01:38 >> What do you think you didn't do as well against the Colts as you guys have done
01:43 well in the first round?
01:44 >> Yeah, well, pretty much everything.
01:46 We didn't stop the run very well.
01:49 We couldn't control the first and second down sticks.
01:53 And mainly it was because of run.
01:55 We weren't as firm as we need to be on the inside.
01:58 Missed some tackles, gave up some big plays.
02:03 We were poor in the red zone, which continues really to be a thing.
02:06 I'm really disappointed in our red zone.
02:08 I thought we'd be further along in our package, and I know it's new.
02:11 And we didn't get a lot of time on task early in the season.
02:15 But we need to have urgency to be better in the red zone.
02:20 That game's a lot different if we can hold some field goals right there.
02:23 But we're a good third down team too, but in that game, we weren't.
02:28 About the only thing that we were good in was what we had sort of struggled
02:33 the first part of the season, which was getting turnovers.
02:36 And that was really the difference in the game.
02:38 I was also proud of the players the way, I mean,
02:41 it seemed like every time we put a fire out, a new one sort of popped up.
02:44 And sometimes you don't have your fastball and you got to scrap and grind.
02:50 And that was a grind for the guys.
02:52 But they kept their head in the game.
02:56 They kept playing.
02:57 And as much as anything, we were able to come up with the four minute stop at
03:02 the end of the game, which put our offense in a position to go win it.
03:07 And then we were able to seal the game with the sack force fumble.
03:11 So a lot of stuff that certainly wasn't up to character for us and
03:16 stuff that we need to do better and improve.
03:19 But we did make plays in the game and that sort of, I'm gonna say counted it
03:24 because you want to play good football, but made up for
03:27 the fact that we didn't have our fastball and we weren't playing good.
03:32 It's sort of baseball in a world series is coming up, but you got a hitter that
03:37 strikes out three times in a row and then it's a home run in the bottom of the eighth.
03:42 It's a three run homer.
03:44 That was sort of the way we played football.
03:47 We wanna have a little more contact than that.
03:49 We wanna put the ball in play.
03:50 >> [INAUDIBLE]
03:54 >> No, I mean, they stayed pretty much like
03:57 the RPO game that actual throws on the RPOs.
04:02 There's really only one and we just need a bigger contact on that one.
04:06 But the scramble, if that's what you're talking about,
04:09 yeah, his more keeping the ball.
04:11 Yeah, no, I mean, he had done it in all their games and Richardson had done it.
04:14 I think there were some of those games when he came in after Richardson was hurt
04:19 that they were shying away or not doing those things.
04:22 But certainly we were prepared for, we just didn't execute very well.
04:27 We missed a lot of tackles on the quarterback and
04:30 weren't in really good position.
04:32 So I think that was probably the biggest thing.
04:35 >> [INAUDIBLE]
04:45 >> Well, I have to stay in character
04:48 there, four and two.
04:50 I mean, right?
04:51 I mean, if we're gonna say three and two when it comes to somebody's performance,
04:56 but yeah, let's be for real.
04:58 That was a performance for the ages, two sacks, two strips,
05:04 both of them, one we scored on defense, the other one the offense scored off of.
05:09 Blocked kick, an amazing blocked kick, about eight tackles.
05:15 I mean, eight tackles is hard for a defensive end to make.
05:18 And maybe one other thing that sort of flies a little bit below the radar,
05:21 we lost Alex early in that game.
05:25 And Oboe was struggling with his ribs and sort of hats off to Oboe,
05:30 because he was playing on half a body, but he was trying to keep going out there and
05:35 tough it out for us.
05:37 But Myles played just about every play in the second half and
05:40 was still able to come up with plays like that.
05:43 And that's just another tribute to him as a player.
05:47 I mean, it's not ideal.
05:48 We don't really wanna go there with playing every single snap.
05:52 And I think that over the course of the season, over the course of games,
05:57 that's not a great strategy, but when you need to, he certainly proved that he could.
06:01 And yeah, that was a great individual performance.
06:09 We had some others, I thought Jordan Elliott might have played his
06:13 best game that we've seen him play.
06:16 He's really, really improved for us.
06:18 He's starting to master the technique of attack.
06:22 He's a big man, saw him get a sack, but not just a sack,
06:26 but his presence in the inside run game has really, really improved.
06:31 So yeah, four and two.
06:34 >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, like Ted Walker.
06:37 What makes him, is he similar to any of the other bats you've faced or
06:41 what makes him successful?
06:43 >> Yeah, you just put the tape on and it's impressive.
06:47 And his numbers, if you just judge him on his stats, 4.1 yards a carry.
06:54 I don't know where that ranks in the league, but it's probably not top ten.
06:59 But you put his film on and it gets your attention right away.
07:01 The broken tackles, he's really hard to bring down.
07:06 He's got quickness and he has power, and
07:09 he can threaten all the edges of your defense.
07:12 Just cuz you have him hemmed up doesn't mean that you got him
07:16 completely bottled in, he can go all the way out the back door.
07:19 He's really good at setting his blocks up.
07:22 He's really an outstanding young player.
07:24 And some of our things that we struggled with against the Colts,
07:29 particularly the inside run game and allowing them to control the game with
07:34 the run and when we played well on defense, particularly Titans and
07:40 49ers after that first drive against the 49ers,
07:44 we were able to control the second down game.
07:48 So he would have a work cut out for him or work cut out for us.
07:53 But yeah, he's an exciting young player.
07:56 I didn't really know him a ton from last year cuz dad had seen him and
08:00 didn't really cross over very much with those guys.
08:03 But he gets your attention really quick and he's a good young player.
08:08 >> The RPOs are relatively new to the NFL, ten years, whatever.
08:14 And with your defensive style, just attack and go forward,
08:18 it would seem to be the play to run at your defense.
08:23 Do you find it frustrating to defend that in your system?
08:26 >> No, I mean, it's just life in the NFL now.
08:29 It spreads you thinner with gaps because you have to count for
08:34 an extra gap with the quarterback.
08:36 So I don't think it's anything that's necessarily frustrating or
08:43 anything else.
08:44 I mean, it's something that's fairly common.
08:46 It used to be you didn't see it very often, but now you see it more.
08:49 And it's not just like, Tony, when we talk about RPO,
08:53 it's the run pass option.
08:56 And a lot of RPO is they have a run called and
08:59 they're throwing the ball off of it.
09:01 They're reading a particular player and they're ripping the ball in and
09:04 getting the ball out quick.
09:06 Think Eagles in the Super Bowl run with Nick Foles.
09:10 But you add the extra layer of quarterback run,
09:15 that's probably I'd say the run option,
09:19 not the run pass option, but the run run option creates an extra gap.
09:27 And we have ways to handle in our scheme.
09:29 We haven't executed them very well so far this year.
09:32 And it's certainly something we need to improve on.
09:34 >> Play something that you have to worry about going forward?
09:36 >> 100%, 100%.
09:38 And we've talked about it in the past.
09:42 And we've had a couple plays this year early in the game against Sam Fran and
09:48 these two plays where we jump off sides and then we don't finish the play,
09:53 whether it's in the back end or up front.
09:55 And our message is we don't necessarily need to try to get back.
10:02 Just go shut the play down.
10:06 Just keep on going and shut the play down so
10:09 that we don't put our corners in that position to
10:14 have to go play those balls where the offense has license.
10:20 So we're a get off team, we're an attack team.
10:25 There's a bit of cost to doing business with that, with offside.
10:28 We don't wanna be off sides in critical situations like backed up or
10:31 third down and short or two minute and things like that.
10:35 But there's gonna be some times where we're gonna be off sides, but
10:39 we can't allow them to turn.
10:41 They need to be five yard plays, not 55 or 80 yard plays or
10:46 whatever we've given up.
10:48 But that's definitely something that's on our radar and
10:52 something that we need to address and improve.
10:54 We already have addressed it, but we need to do it on the field.
10:57 The first step is don't be offside.
11:00 The second step is either shut the play down or
11:03 do a better job of finishing the play.
11:05 And a lot of times you're dealing against human nature,
11:10 like just a natural reaction.
11:12 Your natural reaction is try to get back or to sort of, but
11:17 we need to do that better.
11:18 >> Miles said that he thought maybe the center was doing something with the ball
11:23 that made him jump.
11:25 Did you notice anything?
11:26 Were they doing anything different?
11:27 >> Yeah, I mean, everybody's gonna try to do stuff like that.
11:30 They're gonna try to do whatever they can to gain an advantage.
11:33 They know we're a good pass rush team.
11:35 They know they have players like miles out there and
11:37 they're gonna try to negate that.
11:39 And whether it's hard cadence, whether it's a little bit of movement or
11:44 stuff like that, sometimes I think offenses can put themselves in a little trouble,
11:48 but we put it on tape.
11:49 So we put it on tape, so we're gonna have to deal with it.
11:52 And people think they can gain an advantage,
11:56 and then they're gonna keep on trying if we go a good stretch without
12:01 it affecting us, I think we'll see offenses do it a little bit less.
12:06 >> Yeah, an interesting roster makeup in Seattle,
12:08 they've got some really veteran guys like Jeno and Bobby Wagner,
12:11 who played a ton of football.
12:12 They also have more rookies under 53 than anybody else in the league.
12:16 From a game planning perspective, do you approach things differently when you're
12:20 playing against a team that hasn't seen everything?
12:23 Because there's a little less experience there.
12:25 Is that backwards for you all?
12:27 >> Sometimes when it's a quarterback, sometimes when it's an offensive line,
12:30 I think that does come into the equation.
12:33 When it's skilled players, when it's tight ends or wide receivers,
12:37 I don't know that it comes up quite as much.
12:40 But they also have, even though they have a lot of rookies out there,
12:45 they third year in this offensive coordinator?
12:48 Yeah, third year in Shane's offense.
12:52 So they have a lot of time on task with their other players.
12:55 And even though they have a lot of young players, they can get those guys.
12:58 So I think that if those players were concentrated in a certain position,
13:03 maybe there'd be something there.
13:05 We just need to worry about ourselves.
13:06 We need to execute ourselves.
13:09 Execute ourselves, that's not, we need to execute.
13:12 We need to execute well ourselves.
13:15 How do I do?
13:17 Some of you English majors gotta clean that up for me.
13:20 Yeah, I don't know, but we have to do a better job of executing and
13:24 worry about ourselves.
13:26 There you go.
13:26 [LAUGH]
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