Jim Schwartz got 'PhD in football-ology' during first time with Browns, Bill Belichick

BEREA — Jim Schwartz sat down in the chair in front of the assembled media for his introductory press conference and found himself transported down memory lane.

“You're going to have to give me just a quarter of a second here when I see (former Browns media relations director) Dino (Lucarelli's) picture on the back wall right there," the new Browns defensive coordinator said Wednesday. "Dino set up me buying my first-ever sofa in the NFL. I'd finally got on full-time with the Browns and I was trying to furnish an apartment other than with stuff that was at the dumpster, and he set me up with — what was Old Glue Fingers? — Dante Lavell had a furniture shop. I went down and got a sofa that somebody had ordered and then didn't like when they took delivery and it was sitting and he sold it to me for nothing."

The responsibilities on Schwartz's plate as he returns to Browns' headquarters will be significantly heavier than what he was doing as essentially a gopher for Bill Belichick in the early-to-mid 90s. Back then, he was, in his words, "driving people to the airport and I was getting cigarettes for secretaries and filing papers."

Now, Schwartz is going to be asked to, basically, resurrect a defense that has been inconsistent at best for the better part of two seasons. Of course, that's something he's had to do before in his career, most recently when he took over as the Philadelphia Eagles' defensive coordinator in 2016.

The Eagles defense ranked in the 30s before Schwartz's arrival. In his second season, that defense helped Philadelphia, for the first time ever, celebrate a Super Bowl championship in February 2018.

"I feel a tremendous amount of responsibility to the fans here to get this right and to reward them, because I'll forget most plays of the Super Bowl that I was with with the Eagles, I'll forget just about every play in that game," Schwartz said. "But what I won't forget is that parade afterwards. It's indelible in my mind. I'll never forget it. And in my mind, there's only one place that would outdo that parade in Philadelphia, and we're here right now."

There have been 27 years that have gone by since Schwartz departed Cleveland with the original Browns franchise after the 1995 season. He's had stops in Baltimore, Tennessee, Detroit, Buffalo, Philadelphia, back to Tennessee and, finally, now back to Cleveland.

Schwartz's career has included time spent as a quality control coach, a position coach, now four times as a defensive coordinator and a head coach. It's included two Super Bowl appearances and that Super Bowl championship.

All of which, to a large degree, Schwartz credits to those three seasons he spent making up to "about $20,000 a year."

"But I also got to be a fly on the wall and listen to Bill Belichick and Nick Saban and Scott O'Brien and Kirk Ferentz, gosh you name it," Schwartz said. "It was just unbelievable. I was young. I didn't have a wife. I didn't have a family. I lived here at the office and, even though I have a degree from Georgetown, I got my degree in football-ology, a PhD in football-ology, from the Browns and from Bill Belichick.

“It was just awesome. I was mainly in scouting, but we wore a lot of different hats. And as long as you had a good work ethic, and you were willing to learn and you could keep your mouth shut, you could learn an awful lot. And I was pretty good at all three of those things."

Schwartz also admitted being pretty good at stealing other things from Belichick and Saban. One was a turkey sandwich that the former was looking for after the final day of minicamp in Schwartz's first week on the job.

The other was a playbook from the Browns' 1992 season that Saban, during his time as defensive coordinator, had kept. Schwartz grabbed that one as he was helping Saban pack up to leave after he was hired to be the head coach at Michigan State after the 1994 season.

"It had all — and Nick was meticulous, just a fabulous coach in preparation — basically all 16 games and his notes from beginning of the week to the end of the week and his postgame notes, and it was all right there," Schwartz said. "And he had just left it behind, because he had the other two years. Well, I sort of grabbed that and had it, and I tell you what, I can't tell you how much I referred to that over my years, particularly my first years as a coordinator and just trying to copy the process that Nick went through and looked and see the way  — and it didn't matter what opponent it was or what schemes. It was more about the process."

A process that led Schwartz to head down memory lane as his present and future met up with his past.

Contact Chris at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com.

On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Jim Schwartz got 'PhD in football-ology' in first time with Browns