Jim Schwartz, the Eagles’ defensive coordinator during the 2017 Super Bowl season, interviewed Saturday for the Giants’ defensive coordinator vacancy on new head coach Brian Daboll’s staff, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network.
The Giants’ defensive coordinator position opened up when Patrick Graham left the organization to rejoin new Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels, who Graham worked with under Bill Belichick with the Patriots.
Schwartz spent this last season as Titans senior defensive assistant under Mike Vrabel after spending the five previous years on Doug Pederson’s staff with the Eagles.
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Other known candidates for the Giants’ DC opening include former Ravens defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale, Steelers secondary coach Teryl Austin and former Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai, a one-time Temple assistant under Al Golden.
Schwartz, 55, has had three separate stints as a defensive coordinator -- with the Titans from 2001 through 2008, with the Bills under Doug Marrone in 2014 and with the Eagles from 2016 through 2020. He was Lions head coach from 2009 through 2013.
In Schwartz’s five years in Philadelphia, the Eagles ranked ninth in the NFL in points allowed and 13th in yards allowed. The Eagles ranked fourth in both yards and points allowed in 2017 on their way to the Super Bowl championship.
The Eagles allowed an average of 17.0 points in six postseason games under Schwartz, holding four of those six opponents to 17 or fewer points. Only the Patriots in the Super Bowl scored more than 20.
NFL
Schwartz is a strong believer in generating pressure with the defensive line and dropping as many people back in coverage as possible. He’s had an All-Pro defensive lineman in each of his stops as a defensive coordinator or head coach -- Albert Haynesworth in Tennessee, Ndamukong Suh in Detroit, Marcell Darius in Buffalo and Fletcher Cox with the Eagles.
Schwartz, a native of Baltimore and avid Orioles fan, began his coaching career at Maryland in 1989 and also had stints at Minnesota, North Carolina Central and Colgate before getting his first NFL job in the Browns’ scouting department in 1993.
His first NFL coaching job came with the expansion Ravens in 1996 on Marvin Lewis’s defensive staff under head coach Ted Marchibroda, the one-time Eagles offensive coordinator under Marion Campbell.
The Giants ranked 23rd in points allowed and 21st in yards allowed this past season. They haven’t won a playoff game since the 2011 Super Bowl season.
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