Myles Garrett is set to play under a new defensive coordinator for the fourth time in his NFL career, as the Cleveland Browns officially hired Jim Schwartz on Wednesday to fill their vacancy at the position. Schwartz takes over for Joe Woods, who served as Cleveland’s defensive coordinator over the last three seasons.
Garrett’s previous three defensive coordinators each had a unique plan to simply get the best out of him on the field. For Schwartz, he is already looking forward to working with Garrett in the coming months, especially as the versatile defensive end will feature in a “very D-line-friendly scheme.”
“We are going to work real hard at it,” Schwartz said during his introductory press conference with the Browns. “He is going to play his part. I have been very fortunate over my career to be blessed with some really good defensive linemen. We run a very D-line-friendly scheme that eliminates a lot of conflict for those guys, and we were able to play guys off of that.”
The Browns capped off their 2022 campaign with 34 sacks recorded over 17 games played, which was tied with the Green Bay Packers for the fifth-fewest in the NFL. Schwartz plans to place a high emphasis on bolstering the team's pass rush production.
“Over the course of my career I have talked to a lot of offensive coaches and I have talked to a lot of quarterbacks over the years, and the way you affect the game the most in this league is by pass rush,” Schwartz said. “It is hard to win in coverage. … You can create turnovers off of pass rush. If you can rush with four, it allows your blitz game to be so much more effective because you start blitzing on your terms as opposed to on the offense’s terms.”
Schwartz is also well aware that opposing offensive lines will continue to do whatever it takes to slow down Garrett on a play-by-play basis.
“When I was in Detroit, we always knew that every defensive plan started with how do we keep Calvin Johnson from taking this game over,” Schwartz said. “That was job one, how do we keep that? It allowed you to play at different ways. You knew they were going to do stuff to take him away. I think that every offense we will play will probably start with that — how do we neutralize Myles Garrett, and how do we keep him from wrecking this game?
“It is my job to give him some answers and to be able to put some pieces scheme-wise and personnel-wise around him to allow him to be free and more productive.”
Garrett finished the 2022 regular season with career highs in several stats, including tackles for loss (18).
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