'Everything's explosive': Cleveland Browns rookies rave over Jim Schwartz's scheme
BEREA — The Ferrari Jim Schwartz said the Browns had picked up with the No. 98 pick in last month's draft has gotten a test run the last two days.
Third-round defensive tackle Siaki Ika was told on draft night by the new Browns defensive coordinator that he wasn't "a dump truck anymore now. … You're a Ferrari." When the former Baylor lineman had his introductory press conference the following day, he acknowledged to not being 100% sure what Schwartz was talking about with the vehicle comparison.
Two weeks and two rookie minicamp days later, Ika's picked up on the analogy.
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"Everything's explosive," Ika said Saturday at rookie minicamp. "Just being explosive, getting off the ball, getting vertical rather than just eating stuff up like a dump truck. I don't want to be a dump truck no more."
Ika's change of mindset is along the same lines to what the Browns are trying to do with the defense as a whole. The last two seasons in particular, the defense has been like a dump truck in that it's helped to haul away the Browns' playoff hopes through inconsistent play.
General manager Andrew Berry, knowing that his regime could be the next to be hauled out if winning doesn't return very soon, has decided to completely rearrange what's on the lot, so to speak. The most recent example came just hours after Ika and the rest of the Browns rookies concluded their first minicamp day on Friday.
Berry called up his former understudy, Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, and swung a deal to land three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Za'Darius Smith from the Vikings. The cost was a fifth-round pick in each of the next two drafts.
"I'm real excited," Ika said of the Smith deal. "... Someone else who's been through everything to learn from."
It's someone else who's geared to help the Browns defense find another gear. That gear is one that can make opposing quarterbacks miserable in the pocket.
The way that happens is basically because Schwartz's scheme turns the defensive linemen loose. When the veteran coach was hired in January, one of his former players with the Tennessee Titans could only giggle as he thought about what Browns All-Pro edge rusher Myles Garrett is capable of doing within the system.
Rookie defensive end Isaiah McGuire, a fourth-round pick out of Missouri last month, is learning the Schwartz system for the first time this weekend. The 6-foot-4, 268-pound pass rusher is literally doing cartwheels — as he did after one drill Saturday — picking up the new scheme that is geared toward players such as him.
“So for us, it's having an attack mindset, but also having fun," McGuire said. "Football’s supposed to be fun as well as violent. You got to have fun, football's hard enough. And then everyone is serious on details and whatnot. Like I said, just continuing to improve on those things.”
Smith and the two draft picks are part of the Berry-led refurbishing of the defensive line. It started with free-agent signings such as one of Smith's former Vikings teammates, defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson, and up-and-coming edge rusher Ogbonnia Okoronkwo.
How much Schwartz gets to work with the entire group together before training camp begins is all about offseason program participation. The first mandatory date everyone takes the field together is June 6, the start of the three-day veteran minicamp.
For now, the youngest pieces to the new defensive coordinator's schematic puzzle are getting a chance to absorb things with his full attention. Their takeaway is two-fold:
It's unlike what they've done before
They like that.
"Real fast, explosive and vertical," Ika said. "A little bit different than what I've been used to. I've played a lot of blocks throughout college. It's all I pretty much know. So being able to get here and be in a system where it's just everything goes forward, vertical, just disrupt. Real excited about it."
Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on Twitter at @ceasterlingABJ.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns rookies rave over coordinator Jim Schwartz's explosive scheme
