How Could the Colts' Defense Change Under Jim Schwartz?

Long time defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz is interview for the Colts' vacant position. How would his philosophies impact the defense?

The Indianapolis Colts have lost Defensive Coordinator Matt Eberflus, as he accepted a head coaching job with the Chicago Bears. His departure ushers in a new era of defense for the team, as he took the Colts' entire defensive staff with him.

Among the six candidates, so far, that are rumored to be interviewing for the Colts' vacant position, the most interesting one is long time coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz is a Super Bowl Winning defensive coordinator that spent this past year as a senior advisor with the Tennessee Titans.

While this potential hire could appear as nepotism on paper, due to his relationship with Frank Reich, Schwartz is a more than qualified option. In today's article, I dive into just how different his scheme would be from Eberflus and what changes would have to be made across the defense.

Pass Rush

Isolating His Stars

The biggest constant in Schwartz's NFL career has been what he gets out of his pass rush. He has an incredible ability to scheme up pressure and to propel his best pass rushers into superstardom. Under his tutelage, pass rushers Denico Autry, Jeffery Simmons, Albert Haynesworth, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Marcell Dareus, Mario Williams, Ndamukong Suh, Fletcher Cox, and Brandon Graham have all had career best seasons.

How does he help so many pass rushers hit their peak? He isolates them in favorable one on one match-ups that are hard to account for on offense. He does this in a multitude of ways. Looking at his time in Philadelphia (2016-2020), he set Cox up for a ton of success.

This was one of Schwartz's favorite alignments on passing downs. He would have three defensive linemen to one side of the line, isolating his best player (Cox) with the guard one on one.

By doing this, the opposing offense can't slide help on the Eagles' best pass rusher. Every lineman has a pass rusher head up on them, so they can't afford to double or chip Cox.

The other way that Schwartz would isolate his best rushers is by spreading out his front on passing downs. This next picture is a fairly simple design that, again, has every lineman on the offense having to account for the man in front of them.

Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons is able to rush against the left guard without the threat of the center or left tackle. By lining up both his defensive tackles as three techniques (and both ends out in wide-nine), this creates space for his best pass rushers to attack one on one.

As you can see on the full clip, this allows Simmons to walk the left guard into the quarterback with relative ease.

This is the type of coach that can truly unlock the potential of Dayo Odeyingbo, Kwity Paye, and even DeForest Buckner. These players would be allowed to be in full attack mode on passing downs and be put in situations where they can go to work one on one.

The Colts would likely have to add another player to the mix (Derek Barnett?) in this scenario, but this is the area where Schwartz would have his biggest positive impact on the team.

Run Defense

Contain Defense

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to run defense. "Contain" is gap assignment run defense that is predicated on defenders fitting their gaps and containing everything to the middle. "Spill" is about creating disruption and dictating the run to go to your force players.

Schwartz falls more under the contain umbrella, while Eberflus was a bit closer to spill. Schwartz utilizes his wide alignment to take away outside toss and stretch plays. He has his edge play outside to force the play back to the interior, where the linebackers can then clean up.

Here is an example of what his basic run fits look like in his wide front:

It is easy to see on this graphic what Schwartz is trying to limit with his front. He is more than comfortable to have teams run on the interior, where his stout defensive tackles and fast linebackers are able to make plays.

His alignment, along with bringing the safety into the box, does a great job of eliminating outside runs and tosses. Here is an example of his team stuffing a toss play dead in its tracks.

Now, let's compare that to Eberflus' spill defense. This defense was extremely effective in Indy, especially with the athletes that the Colts have at the second level.

The defensive line crashes down the line to create a positive angle of attack. This spills the run game to the force player at the second level, which is Darius Leonard in this case. Both styles are effective if done correctly:

If the Colts change up their run defense in this way, the only real need would be to add a bulkier SAM backer to play 20-25% of the snaps. The current group at DT, LB, and SS (Khari Willis) should be able to run this style well.

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Pass Coverage

Cover 1 Base

This is the area where Schwartz varies the most from Eberflus. Keeping everything at a base level, for now, Schwartz mostly stays in a cover one or cover three base. That means that he deploys a middle of the field closed style of defense (a single-high safety).

From this base look, he can either stick in man, drop into cover three, or do a combination of the two with pattern matching. The basis of the coverage is fairly typical though, with a single-high safety and another safety in the box over the tight end.

Having the middle of the field closed allows for a talented ball-hawking safety to capitalize on mistakes by opposing quarterbacks. This is something that the Colts have lacked a bit with their traditionally two-high, middle of the field open defense under Eberflus:

Pattern Matching

Pattern matching is essentially a combination of zone and man coverage that was made famous by Nick Saban and Bill Belicheck in the 1990's. Interestingly enough, Schwartz was actually on that very staff with those two when they came up with their rules for this new coverage.

The way that Schwartz deploys pattern matching is more half field reads rather than full field like Belicheck or Saban. He will often times isolate one of his corners in man on the backside and then leave four defenders to match three pass catchers on the other side (for example).

Let's walk through one of the examples that I found on film.

The play starts with a basic middle of the field closed look. The bottom corner is in press because his receiver is the only threat to his side. The top corner is sitting off because he has to account for multiple threats that could push vertical on the play. This gives us the indication that the call is cover three match.

The match part of this design is happening at the top of the screen, as the corner at the bottom is in man all the way. The slot corner in press has the first man out of the formation, so he carries the slot receiver on the out. The deeper outside corner is sitting on a potential vertical route from either player.

From this look, the deeper corner at the top of the screen is keeping his eyes on that inside receiver. If that receiver breaks vertical, he will sink into his cover three drop and let the safety take the inside route. The slot corner is carrying the first man out to the sideline and attempting to reroute in order to give the outside corner time to get to his drop.

What ends up happening is the inside receiver actually comes across the formation on a crosser. This leads to the outside cornerback at the top of the screen to sink back into his cover three zone drop and the slot corner to pass the receiver off to that deep zone.

Since Schwartz matches the strong side of the formation with the safety, the safety is trailing that crossing route across the field. On top of that, the two linebackers are turning and running to take away the crosser option from the quarterback. This entire defense is moving in-sync with the flow of the play-action to shut down this concept.

Here is what the play looks like in its full clip.

• The outside corner at the top of the screen watches the two receivers to see if one gets vertical before dropping back to his deep zone.
• The linebackers are biting hard on the run action before ROBOT-ing back to the crosser.
• The safety is sitting on anything vertical before coming down to the crosser.
• The bottom corner is in press-man throughout the play.

Matt Eberflus did a great job of mixing these designs in over his tenure, but it would become a feature of the defense under Jim Schwartz. For the Colts to make this type of change, they would likely need a reliable fourth corner (behind Isaiah Rodgers, Kenny Moore II, and Rock Ya-Sin) and another safety capable of strong coverage.

Final Thoughts

This article is just a basic overview of the type of changes that Jim Schwartz could bring to the Colts' defense. He would isolate his star pass rushers in favorable positions, switch the run defending scheme just a bit, and transform the defense into a more aggressive, middle of the field closed team.

Is this better than what the team just had? Well, it is different. There are "many ways to skin a cat" and this is just a different style of defense aimed at the same goal.

If Schwartz does get hired, this piece will just scratch the surface of what we will talk about this offseason. I'm excited for the potential changes to a Colts' defensive unit that has a ton of talent already.

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