The hiring of former Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Doug Pederson as the new head coach for the Philadelphia Eagles certainly didn’t excite a fan base that is still recovering from one of the disappointing seasons in recent history.
But the addition of Jim Schwartz as the team’s defensive coordinator is a move that is widely accepted and loved by the majority of the fan base, as it should be.
Schwartz was perhaps the top available defensive mind on the market. The former head coach for the Detroit Lions, Schwartz has been a defensive coordinator for 10 seasons since the turn of the millennium. He served under Jeff Fisher in Tennessee from 2001 to 2008, eventually turning the Titans into one of the top defenses in the NFL. After his unsuccessful five-year stint as the head coach of the Detroit Lions – completely irrelevant to his work as a defensive coordinator – he turned the Buffalo Bills into the league’s fourth-ranked defense.
Schwartz’s specialty is an attacking defense without a heavy emphasis on blitzing. In 2014, the Bills led the league in sacks, with three different players recording double-digit sacks. He uses a 4-3 defense, and he also incorporates aspects of the wide-nine defense.
A change to a 4-3 defense is likely something that would excite most Eagles fans, as the team definitely has the personnel to do so. Adding elements of the wide-nine would probably not, and that’s because the scars from Jim Washburn’s wide-nine defense in 2011 and 2012 have still not gone away. It’s worth noting, however, that Washburn was running his wide-nine on a defense led by a coach who was less qualified to lead the Eagles’ defense than Miles Austin was to start at outside receiver early in the season.
If Schwartz uses his wide-nine, or aspects of it, he’ll have a trio of linebackers about three times better than the group the Eagles had in 2011. Specifically, last year’s rookie sensation Jordan Hicks, the likely starter at middle linebacker, feels like a darkhorse candidate to lead the NFL in tackles. Mychal Kendricks and Kiko Alonso, if he can return to anything close to 2013 form, are miles ahead of past wide-nine linebackers like Jamar Chaney, Brian Rolle and Casey Matthews.
Free-agent Vinny Curry is a player who could likely flourish under Schwartz. If the Eagles are able to re-sign the 27-year-old, who has never been given a chance as a full-time starter, expect him to be one of the two starters at defensive end, where he has double-digit sacks written all over him. The other starter would be 2010 first-round pick Brandon Graham, whose career has seen him go from 4-3 defensive end to 3-4 outside linebacker and possibly back to 4-3 defensive end again.
Here’s the projected starting front seven, if new coordinator Jim Schwartz does in fact switch to a 4-3, something he hasn’t committed to but will likely end up doing.
DT: Fletcher Cox, Bennie Logan
DE: Vinny Curry, Brandon Graham
LB: Mychal Kendricks, Jordan Hicks, Kiko Alonso
You may notice that Cedric Thornton and Connor Barwin are not listed. Thornton is a free agent who didn’t play particularly well this season and was only signed to a one-year deal anyway. He would likely be the backup behind Logan if he was re-signed.
Barwin, on the other hand, is the biggest name from the 2015 defense that may not be brought back in the event of a defensive scheme change. He’s much more equipped to be the Jack linebacker in a 3-4 defense, not an outside ‘backer in a 4-3 defense. Furthermore, at his $7.35 million cap hit in 2016, per Spotrac, he could either be a cap casualty or a trade candidate. But Barwin turns 30 in 2016, so it’s tough to determine how much interest he’ll generate from around the league. If the Eagles could trade him for a fifth-round pick, they would probably make the move.
Then again, we’ve seen a number of Eagles players remain on the roster in recent years despite scheme changes, particularly Trent Cole and Brandon Graham when the team switched to a 3-4 defense before 2013. So maybe Barwin could stay as a rotational piece or even one of the two starters.
There are a lot of reasons to be excited over Schwartz, who brings toughness and a mean streak to a defense that has been sorely lacking anything resembling toughness since the Jim Johnson and Brian Dawkins days. He’s well-liked by his players, so well-liked, in fact, that his Bills players carried him off the field when he defeated the Lions, his old team, in 2014. That’s a strong statement and it speaks volumes to Schwartz as both a coach and a leader.
On paper, Schwartz is the best defensive coordinator the Eagles have had in a number of seasons. A unit that finished in the bottom five in the league in scoring in 2015 has the potential to at least be an above-average unit in 2016.
