Jim Schwartz aims to help Myles Garrett play ‘free and more productive’

Schwartz spent the first several minutes of his press conference reminiscing about his memories from the time he was a personnel scout for the Browns, led by then-head coach Bill Belichick, from 1993-95.

Starting as an unpaid intern, Schwartz’s responsibilities included a variety of non-football jobs that included buying cigarettes for secretaries, driving people to the airport and filing papers. The hours were long, but they were also full of chances for Schwartz to listen to one of the greatest minds of the sport in Belichick. Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz, Al Groh and Eric Mangini — all future NFL or college coaches — were on the staff as well.

“I got a Ph.D. in ‘Football-ology’ from the Browns and from Bill Belichick, and it was just awesome,” Schwartz said. “I was mainly in scouting, but we wore a lot of different hats. As long as you had a good work ethic, you were willing to learn and you could keep your mouth shut, you could learn an awful lot — and I was pretty good at all three of those things.”

Those lessons led Schwartz on a career that featured three previous stints as a defensive coordinator, a job as a head coach and winning a Super Bowl ring as the defensive coordinator with the Eagles in 2018.

Now, he’s back where it all began, and he attributes what’s been a successful 30-year career in the NFL to those arduous days in Cleveland.

“It all went back to the years I spent in this building,” he said.

As Schwartz’s press conference came to a close, he wanted to make sure he left the podium with one final point about why he was drawn to take the Browns’ defensive coordinator job: the fans.

“To be back among the passionate fans in the Midwest, you want to coach where the fans are passionate,” Schwartz said. “Philadelphia, OK, check, we had that. Detroit, Buffalo, Tennessee, so you embrace that part of it. I think that’s an important part of our process and an important part of what the organization goes…