Ozzie Newsome, Marvin Lewis on Jim Schwartz: 'You could just tell he was so bright'

Jim Schwartz is finally going to get a chance to be an on-field coach for the Browns. The last time he was in Cleveland, he did a lot of things for the Browns but coaching wasn't one of them.

"Well, I mean, we were doing a lot of things," Browns Hall of Fame tight end and former Baltimore Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome recalled by phone to the Beacon Journal Tuesday. "I don't think you could just sit there and say, 'This is what he did.' We would, we all did what Bill (Belichick) asked us to do, Bill and Mike (Lombardi) asked us to do."

The 56-year-old Schwartz will be the Browns' defensive coordinator for the 2023 season, replacing Joe Woods. The then-26-year-old Schwartz was just another of Belichick's famed "slappies" when he got his start with the original franchise for the 1993 season.

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Officially, Schwartz's title was pro scout. In reality, like so many of the other up-and-comers who Belichick brought into the organization promising little pay and long hours, his responsibilities were pretty much anything that could come to mind, some of it even football related.

Newsome, whose title in 1993 was assistant to the head coach/offense/pro personnel before being promoted to Director of Player Personnel in 1994, said that Schwartz's strengths fit his somewhat undefined role perfectly.

"Well, he could multitask," Newsome said. "He also was very, very good from a detail standpoint."

Schwartz held down a scouting role with the Browns right up until the day the franchise moved to Baltimore after the 1995 season. When the move happened, that may have signaled the end of Schwartz's NFL dreams, at least with the Browns-turned-Ravens.

However, there was someone on the Ravens' coaching staff who opened the door for Schwartz to not only keep his goal of working in the NFL alive, but working in an on-field role in the league.

"It was Marvin Lewis," said Newsome, who was Ravens player personnel director from 1996-2001 before being promoted to general manager in 2002. "When we came over from Cleveland, we had had only so many spots in the scouting staff, and (Baltimore head coach) Ted (Marchibroda) had hired Marvin to be the defensive coordinator. And so I asked Marvin would he interview Jim for a quality control position that he had available. He did. He fell in love with him, and that's what started him into coaching."

The Ravens hired Schwartz to be a defensive quality control coach under Lewis. At the time, Lewis had no connection with the unproven assistant, having worked with the Browns' archrivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, through the 1995 season.

However, for Lewis, the word of Newsome was as good as any to convince him to take a chance on Schwartz.

"When I took the job, Ozzie said, 'Hey, we hired a young guy here this last year,'" Lewis told the Beacon Journal Tuesday from Arizona, where he's special advisor in the Arizona State University football program. "'He hasn't got to do much, but he's a smart guy. He is hardworking and I think he's worthwhile you speaking with and trying to see if we can keep him around.' And he was so right."

The football knowledge was one thing that impressed Lewis, who was in his first year as a defensive coordinator after having coached linebackers with the Steelers. In fact, one of the primary duties for Schwartz once he was hired in an on-field role in Baltimore was to assist linebackers coach Maxie Baughan.

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The thing that set him apart, though, was his ability to connect with the players themselves. It wasn't just in communication, but in teaching as well.

"That first year, Jimmy, really, just his ability to work as my assistant, but also about his ability to see me, for me witness him helping coach the guys on the field and so forth all the time," Lewis said. "You know, you could just tell he was so bright. He had a great way of delivering to the players and getting it to where they could understand it.

"And that's the key element of this job is, it doesn't matter how much we know, it's we can impart to them and they can retain. And Jimmy had a great knack for that. You could see that very early in the '96 season."

Schwartz spent the next two seasons with the Ravens in a similar role. Lewis tried to promote him to a bigger role on the field, but couldn't convince Marchibroda to go along.

That didn't stop Lewis from making sure he was a key part of the defensive staff, especially assisting with the linebackers. At the time, that group included future Hall of Famer Ray Lewis and 1997 Defensive Rookie of the Year Peter Boulware.

"We didn't get it very far for Coach Marchibroda, but Jimmy actually continued to work behind the scenes quite a bit," Lewis said. "Maxie Baughan was our linebacker coach at the time, who was very experienced and wealth and knowledge and he was great. Jimmy was a great complement to him, but Jimmy just continued to expand his role and his opportunity and his input with me being the coordinator as well, as far as game planning and everything that way."

Marchibroda was fired after the Ravens went 6-10 in the 1998 season. Although Lewis was retained by Marchibroda's successor, Brian Billick, and went on to win a Super Bowl in the 2000 season, Schwartz was not kept on by the new regime.

Lewis, though, remained very high on Schwartz's potential. He persuaded Tennessee Titans head coach Jeff Fisher and his defensive coordinator at the time, Gregg Williams, to hire the up-and-comer.

Schwartz served as a defensive assistant for the Titans' 1999 AFC championship team, before finally getting that coveted linebackers coach role in 2000. When Williams left to become the Buffalo Bills' head coach in 2001, Schwartz was promoted to defensive coordinator, a role he held until leaving for his own head-coaching opportunity with the Detroit Lions in 2009.

Lewis became the Cincinnati Bengals' head coach in 2003. He admits there's been an evolution in Schwartz's schematic philosophy from the time he started with him in Baltimore to what has now become his former protege's staple, the wide-nine front.

"When I took over as the coordinator there in Baltimore with the past they had in Cleveland, I retained most of the front stuff terminology and so forth," Lewis said. "Techniques and stuff that they had done under Coach Belichick and the (defensive line) coach (Jacob Burney) we rehired. But as Jimmy left and went on and coached with Jim Washburn there in Tennessee and so forth, then they got more into the wide nine and the things that they have continued to develop since then. That was over time."

Time that eventually led Schwartz back to the place where his NFL career got started: Cleveland.

Contact Chris at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com.

On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Ozzie Newsome, Marvin Lewis helped jump-start Jim Schwartz's career