Schwartz Explains the Third-Down Blues in Pittsburgh
PHILADELPHIA - The Eagles came into Pittsburgh with the sixth-best third-down defense in the NFL at the quarter-pole.
They left the Three Rivers a charred mess after the Steelers converted 11-of-15 opportunities on the game's most important down in a 38-29 win.
Ben Roethlisberger came into the game excelling on third downs with a 110.8 passer rating so it was strength vs. strength on paper and "Big Ben," didn't win a decision, he knocked the Philadelphia defense out, completing all 13 of his passes on third down for 158 yards with two touchdowns, both obviously to rookie Chase Claypool, who at last word just scored on the Eagles again.
"He was on fire," defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said of Roethlisberger.
The coup de gras was the 35-yard touchdown pass to Claypool on a third-and-8 with 2:59 left in the fourth quarter, something Schwartz was peppered on because of the involvement of embattled linebacker Nate Gerry in coverage.
"What we had called was good against what they had called, but Ben recognized it," Schwartz said, validating the narrative that began with Roethlisberger himself explaining what went on post-game. "It's probably inside of the 15 seconds for being able to change the call.
"I think that it just turns into every defense has a strength and they also have spots that aren't as strong. Ben went to the spot right there, they made the play."
Asked about a potential timeout, Schwartz admitted that's above his pay grade right now.
"That's always been the head coach's responsibility here," he explained. "There have been a couple times over the years that we've had 10 guys on the field and that's up to Doug (Pederson). Doug has to weigh that with saving timeouts for if we get them stopped and we're trying to go down and kick a game-winning field goal."
From Schwartz's view, Gerry was trying to sit down to stop a potential first down.
"As far as being aggressive, we're trying to stop the first down right there, and that's what Nate is trying to do," the DC said. "So he sits down on that route because that's where the sticks are and he goes over the top. It's similar to a corner giving up a double move. There are probably different things we can do, but what that does is that puts the stress on other people on the defense.
"You know, you blitz, you put the pressure on the corners, you play man, you have pick problems and you put the pressure on those guys. There's no magic answer for any of those situations, but I think the bottom line is, we're playing aggressive. We're trying to keep them out of field goal range right there. They made us pay for that aggressiveness."
The Gerry vitriol obfuscates the reality that the Eagles gave up four other TDs to Claypool, one that was called back because of a questionable OPI call. In other words, there were plenty of other things that were going wrong, some of which could be attributed to a hot quarterback on those third downs.
"There's sometimes where a quarterback gets hot, and it just puts more emphasis on you have to take advantage of the times that you have," Schwartz said. "We missed a tackle on a third down-and-five. We got a chance to get off the field. We jump offsides on the third-and-nine and it makes it a third-and-five, which is really, really hard to stop.
"{Roethlisberger] was going to the right spots. He was making accurate throws. ... When that happens, it puts more emphasis on you as a defense that you've got to play mistake-free football and whether it's a call by me or whether it's a penalty, we didn't have [many] mental errors in this game, but whether it's a physical error like a missed tackle, or a penalty, a mental lapse when it comes to jumping offsides, or physical mistake like a DPI, all of those give a hot quarterback a second opportunity."
On an October Sunday in Pittsburgh that simply wasn't going to work.
"Sometimes you can go out and hold a quarterback to 20 percent on third down and things like that," said Schwartz. "When he's hot like that, you have to scrap to get 50 percent and when you don't scrap, if you make mistakes, it's going to be 75 percent or whatever it was in that game.
"It puts more of an emphasis on us and playing mistake-free football, and I think that there were too many opportunities for him to make another play."
-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Monday and Friday on SIRIUSXM and every Monday and Thursday with Eytan Shander on SportsMap Radio. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
Get the latest Eagles news by joining the community. Click "Follow" at the top right of the EagleMaven page. Mobile users click the notification bell. And please follow @kracze on Twitter.
