The Buffalo Bills introduced Jim Schwartz as their defensive coordinator Monday, and he said he did not step into this situation lightly after getting fired as the Detroit Lions head coach four weeks ago.
“When you’re a head coach, and you find yourself on the outside, you want to be very careful about your next opportunity, and I was in this case,” Schwartz said. “And I didn’t step into this lightly. Not only from the administration here, the ownership and the coaching staff, but also from a player standpoint, this is a tremendous opportunity for a defensive coach.”
Schwartz replaces Mike Pettine, who left to become the Cleveland Browns head coach.
“First of all, Mike and I are different guys,” Schwartz said. “Even though I think continuity is important and there is something to be said for that, we’re going to look very hard at ways over the next few months to keep continuity as much as we can.
“From a coaching standpoint, I think a lot of times it’s coaches adapting to players. We have some outstanding players up front and it goes beyond Mario Williams, it goes beyond Kyle Williams, it goes beyond Marcell Dareus. I mean Alan Branch, Jerry Hughes, I’m sure I’m overlooking a ton of guys. There’s some talent up front and it’s on these coaches to put those guys in good position to make plays. Whether that’s carry over from last year’s scheme, whether that’s new things that we bring. I think that’s what coaching is all about, we put players in position to make plays and that’s a pretty easy group to do it.
“We’ll be fast, we’ll be physical, and we’ll attack. We are not going to be a reading defense. There’s going to be a lot of defensive lineman that will be real happy to play in a system like that.
Schwartz said he plans to have an aggressive defense with the Bills.
“We’re an attack scheme,” Schwartz said. “It’s a scheme built on the guys up front getting after the quarterback, and as much you want to be multi-dimensional and have different personnel groups, this league boils down to guys winning one on one, and I think we have some guys that can do that.”