“We put a big emphasis on making plays and being aggressive. And the thing I learned the most from that was we chased plays in that game, right? Instead of letting the plays come to us and making the plays that were there,” he said Schwartz, via team transcript. “And I thought for most of last year we did a really good job of that, and in that game, we blew an interception pretty early in the game and it looked like we were putting pressure on it and the guys played around a little bit.” of character instead of just doing his job with physical toughness, effort and some personality, suddenly we were playing a little out of character.
“There were a couple of times where, even when I was running the play, I started to press, right? The game started to get away from us a little bit and I started to press. It was like, ‘Oh, let me score this, look.'” whether.’ And, you know, a lot of times it just makes things worse… At that point we didn’t play like we should.”
With time to reflect on last season coming to a close, preparations have begun to build on that otherwise strong first season.
Before that game, the Browns had put together a quality season for a team in the first year of a new system. Under Schwartz’s tutelage, the defense went from 20th in 2022 to 14th last season. And although they struggled in the red zone, the group finished first in the league in passing yards and total yards allowed, as well as third-down conversions.
“After a pretty good year on defense, when you look at the film there was a lot of room for improvement,” Schwartz said. “We can’t be complacent, we can’t think that last year is going to mean anything, right now last year doesn’t mean anything, everyone is back at the bottom of the hill and we have to climb it again.”
Most of last year’s starters are returning, and with a year in Schwartz’s system under their belt, everyone should feel more comfortable, allowing DC to add to the scheme and potentially make the unit more irritating to offenses. contrary.
“I mean, obviously we’re in a different situation because we’re one year into the system,” Schwartz said. “…We don’t have to work on the fastball now, we can add different pitches and you guys will get tired of my baseball analogies, but really, that’s what it is. We don’t want to get away from the fastball. fastball, but it gives us a chance to work on some changeups and some secondary pitches and add to our scheme.”
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