The star of that defense is new coordinator Jim Schwartz. The Eagles haven’t employed a defensive coordinator with a plan like Schwartz since the late great Jim Johnson was barking out commands during the heyday of Andy Reid.

Q. What went on in the first half against the Lions?


JIM SCHWARTZ: It wasn’t really big plays. They just methodically moved the ball. A couple times penalties contributed to keeping those drives alive. It’s something in our first three games we really, I thought, did a good job of avoiding penalties that kept drives alive. We had the roughing the quarterback [penalty] when he slid for the extra yards. That gave them another chunk in there. We tore his helmet off on a sack. We’re going to hold him to a field goal right there. That keeps that drive alive. So probably the most disappointing thing about that game were some of those penalties. [Lions] Quarterback [Matthew Stafford] was hot. He made a couple throws under pressure. He dime shot the ball in there. There’s going to be some of those in the NFL. But we can’t afford to give teams things for free. We tightened up a lot more in the second half and were able to play a lot better and keep them off the board until that last field goal.



Q. Did you feel like your guys were ready to play Sunday?


JIM SCHWARTZ: Yeah. I don’t think there was anything schematically or anything from a standpoint other than it’s the NFL and playing opponents. Obviously we didn’t play our best half of football. We played our worst half of football over the course of the season. But, like I said, I was proud of the way they responded in the second half, some of the adjustments we were able to make. [We] came out and played a good half of football. Four sacks, a turnover. Disappointed we had a chance to maybe seal the game with a better step and intercepting that other ball that almost got intercepted. But a loss is a loss. Hopefully we can use some of the lessons we learned from that to help us win some games down in the future. I think one of the things that may serve us well from that was the fact that we hadn’t been in a close game before. Our first three games, there was a lot of grinning in the fourth quarter on the sideline because the games were sort of out of hand. You’re going to have to play tight games in the NFL. There’s some seasoning and experience that goes along with that. Hopefully, even though we lost the game, it will serve us over the course of the last three quarters of the season.



Q. Not rotating at linebacker in the nickel in the second half, what kind of impact did that have?


JIM SCHWARTZ: Yeah, you know, really wasn’t a plan to rotate in the second half anyway, so it really wasn’t an adjustment that we made. Just depending on how that game was going to play. They had used a lot of 11-personnel, which we traditionally match nickel with. We just wanted to try to take some of the reps of those guys off. Second half, we were getting a lot of three-and-outs. First half there were some long drives. We were trying to keep our guys as fresh as we could. So that was just the way the game went. It really wasn’t an adjustment, I guess you’d say.



Q. So the rotation in the first half was just to keep LB Jordan Hicks and LB Nigel Bradham fresher?


JIM SCHWARTZ: Yeah, we’ve taken that approach, particularly with Jordan. It just depends the way the game plays. If an opponent chooses to play us in certain personnel packages, we could have some guys play just about every snap and some guys play not very much. Just trying to find ways to mitigate that and try to find ways to keep guys fresh. Every week it’s a little different. I think in that game, maybe that served us in the second half. It’s hard to really say. Maybe those guys were able to fly around a little bit more in the second half because they had a dozen snaps taken off of them or whatever it was in the first half. We could find ways to get all our guys to contribute. But the bottom line is to find a way to win, and we didn’t do a good enough job of that.



Q. What are your thoughts on the missed tackles?


JIM SCHWARTZ: I thought our leverage was bad on a couple screens. I wouldn’t necessarily think tackling wasn’t good. We’re going to miss some tackles. It’s because we’re an aggressive defense that we like to fly and not slow down at the ball. In order to do that, you need other guys filling off of you. If you over-coach guys not to miss tackles, you don’t fly to the ball. You don’t have big hits and things like that. It sort of softens you up. If you take an approach of guys run with their angle and aggressively take their angle, they’re going to miss some sometimes. That’s why team pursuit is so important, that’s why team speed is important. You need other guys to fill off of them. I didn’t think we did a terrible job of tackling. I thought particularly on a couple of the screens, we didn’t leverage them well, didn’t attack it fast enough. I wouldn’t have said it was the tackling.



Q. So on the third-and-11 play, was that an angle that LB Mychal Kendricks took?


JIM SCHWARTZ: That was an angle issue, really not a tackling issue.



Q. That’s how you want him attacking that play?


JIM SCHWARTZ: That was bad leverage. That was bad leverage. If we’re taking fast leverage and going inside-out or outside-in, playing for our help in that situation, he had corner help, he’s got to leverage that ball there. Again, if you play your leverage, usually good leverage teams are good tackling teams. If you do miss, there’s another guy there to clean it up right away. If we’re going to be good, that’s what we need to be. Knowing where your help is, aggressively playing for that goes hand-in-hand with flying to the football and goes hand-in-hand to limiting big plays. We’ve been doing a good job on third down. Even though we technically had a couple wins on third down, they weren’t necessarily wins. Like that play, it got to fourth down, but we didn’t stop on fourth down, so it really doesn’t count as a third down stop.



Q. Why did DE Vinny Curry only play 16 snaps?


JIM SCHWARTZ: That was another one as we look back, probably like to get him and even [DT] Beau Allen, getting him some more in there. It’s a tough situation. It’s easy to rotate when things are going [well], you know what I mean? It’s easy to tag the next guy. The next guy goes in, you’re on a roll, you’re getting stops and things like that. When you start giving up plays and you start giving up touchdowns, it becomes a little bit harder just to get those guys in rotation for a lot of different reasons. In the second half, again, fell a little bit to the linebackers. In the second half, there really wasn’t that much of a need to rotate guys because we were getting quick stops, we were getting turnovers, we were getting off the field, and guys were fresh then. But, you know, traditionally we’d like to get him or theoretically we’d like to get him more.



Q. Is he practicing the way you want him to be practicing?


JIM SCHWARTZ: Practice doesn’t mean anything. [Jokingly] I don’t want to get Allen Iverson in there. I mean, you know, it’s all about how you perform on Sunday. He’s been rushing the passer well, and I think that that showed. He was able to get a sack, sort of played off of [DT] Fletch[er Cox] on that one. But he’s been affecting the passer. He’s a key part of our defense and he’ll always be involved.



Q. All four games you’ve been better in the second half than the first half. What do you think is happening there? I guess it’s a positive that you’re finishing strong. Do you think that’s fitness? Is it schematic?


JIM SCHWARTZ: You know, I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. It’s a small sample size. I think if you had your druthers, you’d probably rather be better in the second half than the first. I mean, if we were crappy in the second half, you guys would all be saying we don’t make any adjustments, we’re in poor condition, whatever it is. The offense is going to find their way. I like the personality of our defense in that there’s been times early in the season we gave up some plays. Monday Night Football, the opener. We were able to sort of, you know, I don’t want to say stop the bleeding, but we were able to get it controlled, and they were able to go out and play. One bad play didn’t turn into the next. There’s no dodging the fact we played a poor half of football in the first half. Three drives, three touchdowns, penalties, third-down conversions. There was a lot not to like in that. But I think we’ve all seen teams or been around teams that that 21 points in the first half could have easily led to 45. But they were prideful. We found a way to get things a little bit better in the second half. I’m proud of the guys for that.



Q. Are running backs catching the ball in the backfield a point of emphasis for you?


JIM SCHWARTZ: It always is. When you’re an attack defense, people are going to try to run the trap, they’re going to try to run the screen, they’re going to try to run draws. That just goes along with the territory. You’re going to have to be good on those things. We didn’t leverage them very good in the second half. They tried to come back to it and we threw it for a loss. There’s a lot of different layers to that. There’s D-line, linebackers, secondary behind it. [Lions RB Theo] Riddick, he’s a good [running] back out of the backfield. We didn’t do a good enough job against him. I saw a stat before the game where over the last year he’s leading the NFL in receptions for running backs. It showed in that game. We have another challenge this week, [Redskins RB Chris] Thompson. Thompson is a good back out of the backfield also. Gives us some same things. The other thing that goes into some of those plays, if you defend them well early in the game, whether it’s trap or draw or screen or any of those other things, offense has a harder time going back to it. When you give up a couple plays early, you just know they’re going back to it. We need to do a better job early in the game of getting those plays stopped.



Q. How will you evaluate Kendricks? Will you reconsider using him in nickel?


JIM SCHWARTZ: That’s sort of the question before. Reconsider using him? We’ve considered it. We’ve got him some reps in some of those not only nickel packages but other packages there. I don’t want to get into evaluations or anything else. Defensively we didn’t play well enough to win, mostly due to a poor first half of football.



Q. What type of challenges do Washington’s wide receivers present for you guys?


JIM SCHWARTZ: That’s a good offensive skill group. [They have a] heavy running back that can make yards in between the tackles. He runs through contact. I’m talking about [RB] Matt Jones. Complementary back in Thompson that’s good on the perimeter. One of the marquee tight ends in the NFL [Redskins TE Jordan Reed]. Their leading receiver can play down the field, can make plays short, plays like a wide receiver. Then a lot of different kinds of wide receivers. I didn’t know a lot about [Redskins WR Jamison] Crowder just because he was a rookie last year and not being in this division. But that guy is a good player in the slot. Makes a lot of plays. He is a key part of their third-down offense. We all know [Redskins WR] DeSean Jackson and his ability to make a big play. Then [Redskins WR] Pierre Garcon sometimes gets overlooked in that crowd. But he is another guy that can move the chains, can make plays, can run after the catch. They have a lot of receivers that are different in style. They all fit well together. It’s not a situation where you can take one guy out and then feel like, ‘Okay, hey, we can handle the rest.’ Everybody is going to have to do their part across the board. In some ways, a little bit like Pittsburgh. They have a lot of different receivers, a lot of different body types, a lot of different guys to use in a lot of different ways.



Q. What has Redskins QB Kirk Cousins shown you on tape?


JIM SCHWARTZ: He does a good job of executing that offense. When you look at the different things that they do, whether it’s stacks and options and running the ball, putting them in the right run plays, things like that, he has put them in those kind of positions. Doesn’t really favor one guy or the other. Moves the ball around to a lot of different players. He has enough arm strength to attack the whole field. He can throw the ball deep over the top and that fits DeSean Jackson. There’s going to be three or four times in the game they’re going to unleash a deep ball. It’s not a 45-yard deep ball. That [ball] is coming 60, 65 yards. He is tough also. He’s taken some hits this year, some pretty wicked hits. He’s got back up and played. Also he’s led them to a good record. I think when you’re a quarterback, that’s the most important stat. He’s a challenge for us.



Q. What has he done to clean up and find that accuracy within his game after getting off to a slow start at the beginning of the season?


JIM SCHWARTZ: Yeah, I think any quarterback, there’s times, particularly in the opener, they were behind. It’s hard. When you’re behind and you got to fit balls in – if the only way to win is to fit a ball in, that’s not always the greatest situation to be in. I think as it goes on, and as they were in closer games, he was able to make better decisions. I think that goes hand-in-hand with the way the games went.



Q. Washington’s offensive line is very good from a pass protection standpoint. What do you see there?


JIM SCHWARTZ: They got some big guys up front. They have a good blend of experience. It starts with the [Redskins] left tackle [Trent Williams]. He’s a Pro Bowl player. If you talk about offensive line play, you can probably start there. Teams have ability to rely on one guy they think that can take a rusher out, then they can take their scheme other places. I like our pass rush. I think that’s a great matchup in this game, our ability to generate a pass rush, our ability to blitz. Those kind of things will go a long way in determining who the winner in this game is in that matchup between the O-line and D-line. It doesn’t just go to pass game. It’s run game, also. They’ve been able to methodically move those chains. We’ve been good at creating some lost-yardage plays. That will be a good battle, also.