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Jim Schwartz held his Week 1 press conference this morning, and went over a range of topics. He started off with a self depreciating joke about making sure he was positioned at the podium correctly so that reporters couldn't see Jim Schwartz's gym shorts. Then he got right into the details.
On the Eric Rowe trade
"The development of Jalen Mills had a lot to do with it." Schwartz praised the 7th round draft pick and said that he would only be dressing four cornerbacks on game day.
When asked why the Eagles traded Rowe, he wouldn't take the bait, instead praising Rowe. "He's a good press corner, that's what his strengths are." He said he didn't see him as a safety in the NFL, only as a corner.
On player rotation
"If you want your best players to play well over the course of a season you are going to need to rotate them a little bit."
"I always compare it to a bullpen in baseball.... if you're throwing an inning you can heat it up pretty good."
On linebacker rotation
"We have a lot of different linebacker packages. Each guy has a little different purpose in all of those."
"I view using guys with their particular talents as a positive, I view keeping guys fresh as a positive. It's up to guys to perform."
Reporters again tried to get Schwartz to tip his hand with questions about why Mychal Kendricks was playing late in preseason games, but again the veteran coach wasn't having any of it, saying that Kendricks and Stephen Tulloch played deep in to games with backups to help them get back up to game shape after missing the first half of the preseason.
On Carson Wentz's development
Schwartz faced a few questions about the readiness and development of Carson Wentz. He was pretty clear that he was focused on his unit. "I'm just trying to farm my own land."
"We can help any QB by giving keeping the score down. We can help by getting them the ball back."
"Our job is to get them stopped regardless of what happens."
On helping Carson Wentz in his debut
"I don't think we can look at it that way. Our job is to go stop the opponent."
"If we're getting off the field on 3rd down if we're creating turnovers that's certainly going to help our offense."
On preparing for Cleveland
Schwartz faced very little in way of questions about facing the Browns. He says he expects the Browns to use some read option after seeing them use it in preseason and given RGIII's skills, and feels that they are very good at taking deep shots. He noted that the Browns like to use unbalanced offensive lines, and also bring in extra offensive linemen to help the running game.
On preseason confidence carrying over to the regular season
"On my bio does it say anything about preseason stats anywhere?"
Schwartz was quick to point out multiple times that while a good preseason is nice, it doesn't mean anything for regular season games.
"Yeah there's positive signs, yeah we've shown signs we can execute different schemes but let's not get ahead of ourselves, it's a long season, there's not going to be any asterisks 'yeah they played crappy but they were pretty good in the preseason.' anyone going to quote me on that?"
Yes.