Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz knows the biggest strength — and weakness — of the New York Giants.
“When they take care of the football and sack the quarterback, they play well. The two times they lost, Indianapolis and Tennessee, I think they only had one sack apiece in those games. That sort of neutralizes the strength of the Giants defense, the pass rush,” Schwartz said. “They’re gaining a lot of yards and they’re not letting opponents gain a lot of yards, being number one in the NFL. They have turned the ball over a little bit, but there are a lot of similarities there with our team. They’re in a better position being 3-2, but when we rush the passer well, we can do some things defensively. Our Achilles heel offensively has been turnovers, particularly turnovers in the scoring zone.”
The Giants are third in the league with 19 sacks after fives games.
Schwartz is trying to change a losing culture in Detroit, and expressed admiration for the way Giants coach Tom Coughlin goes about his business.
“The one thing you don’t want to do is change course and over react to things. You need to have confidence that your plan is going to work, and you need to be able to stick with that plan. I greatly admire Tom Coughlin for that reason,” Schwartz said. “he is the same guy every week. He is very, very consistent as a coach, and there is not a whole lot of changes and surprises. I think the players know what to expect. If we can get that kind of atmosphere here, we draft good players, we sign good players, we develop good players, and we put them in a scheme that fits them, we don’t panic and we don’t change, we have confidence in what we’re doing, and then we’ll get out of the issues that we’ve had in the past, and we’ll be a good, consistent team.”