Schwartz earned back Belichick’s trust throughout his role, which he started as an unpaid intern and finished three seasons later with a paltry salary of $20,000. His tasks included fetching cigarettes for secretaries, driving people to and from the airport and filing papers.
The dirty jobs belonged to him, but he also sat in on meetings and learned from some of the greatest minds of the sport. Saban, Kirk Ferentz, Al Groh and Eric Mangini were all on staff and later became NFL or college coaches. Ozzie Newsome, Mike Tannenbaum and Thomas Dimitrof were there, too, and became high-level NFL executives.
Thirty years later, Schwartz attributes all his success to those memories and lessons in Cleveland.
“I lived here at the office,” he said. “Even though I have a degree from Georgetown, I got my degree in football-ology and a Ph.D. in football-ology from the Browns and from Bill Belichick.”
Those memories were why Schwartz was happy to be back in Cleveland as he begins the role of defensive coordinator for the fourth time in his career.
His job? Fix a defense that was inconsistent for most of last season.
The Browns finished 19th in the league in yards allowed per game (331.2) and spent much of the first half of the year further behind in those rankings. They allowed the 25th-most rushing yards per game (135) and didn’t transform into the top-tier unit the Browns believed they could become before the season began.
Schwartz’s job in fixing that group will be much tougher than anything he did in his first job in Cleveland. But in the years since, he’s proven capable of turning around defenses and maximizing talent of the group’s best players.
As the defensive coordinator in Tennessee, Schwartz elevated the Titans’ defense from 32nd in the league in yards allowed per game in 2006 to fifth in 2007. After the unit finished seventh in the league in 2008, Schwartz earned his first job as a head coach with the Lions in 2009.
When he returned to the defensive coordinator role with…
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