Alright I’m back, sorry about that. Spent three hours at the Sixers media lunch and hopefully can get chunks of that transcribed later tonight.

Jim Schwartz and Mike Groh spoke to the media today, their first time addressing reporters since Sunday’s 27-21 loss to Tampa Bay.

Here’s what Schwartz had to say:

  • need to be more consistent on the road, fans definitely help provide home-field advantage for the defense and the entire team
  • road travel doesn’t really affect performance, game plan doesn’t change on the road, doesn’t see any reason for the discrepancy in home/road performance in those areas
  • On giving up the 75 yard touchdowns: “…I think we’re on the wrong path if we just say it’s an aberration. The (first) one was on a blitz and (second) one was considered to be a pretty safe zone, and both of them were the same result, and it just goes to show you, you can’t let your guard down on any play. There is a risk of blitzing. I know most of the — every time I step on to the field, or come out of the tunnel, all I hear is, “Schwartz, you’ve got to blitz every play, you’ve got to bring it every play.” And I understand, they mean you have to pressure the quarterback, which we’re all for, but there is some risk inherent to that. We took a risk on the first play, we paid dearly for it. We didn’t execute very well on a 75-yarder, a lot of different layers to that. It’s never one person’s fault, but then we also didn’t tackle very well. I think that the first play is probably off of that because we never laid a glove on him, but the second play, we had chances, and we didn’t look like ourselves a lot of times. There were sometimes where running backs and wide receivers were dragging us for two and three extra yards, and you generally don’t see that from us. We need to get back on track to playing physical football and tackling well.”
  • feels like they could/should have gotten to the quarterback on the DeSean Jackson touchdown pass, feels like the defense was “sloppy across the board,” tackling wasn’t as good as it normally is
  • Andrew Luck is completing passes and remains accurate as a quarterback, not shying away from contact and still has very good mobility
  • Indy head coach Frank Reich is one of the best guys he’s ever met in the business, did a great job in Philadelphia as offensive coordinator
  • few missed assignments in the game, though they did “blow a coverage that we very rarely ever blow” on the third touchdown
  • 100% of defenses are better suited to playing with a lead, but there weren’t as many 3rd and longs in this game and the defense didn’t play as many snaps as they normally do because of time of possession – just not enough snaps to go around for everybody, which is why Michael Bennett didn’t receive as much playing time as last week
  • Colts are good on third down, haven’t turned the ball over a lot, haven’t taken a lot of sacks, showing good stuff in the red zone, big play wide receiver in T.Y. Hilton and a “very smart veteran quarterback” in Andrew Luck
  • Hilton is a threat, often catches balls in deep and mid-ranges down the field and can damage you for large chunks of yardage as a time
  • didn’t think Jalen Mills was playing too “far off” on Sunday, says he usually mixes up his coverages and that the defense just didn’t show great technique all around in the loss

And Mike Groh:

  • need to find more ways to get Dallas Goedert involved: “…He just wasn’t in there in the spots where we were getting the ball to. We’re going to continue to try to monitor that and make sure that he is going to help us win games here.”
  • need to get the best 11 players on the field and find continuity and rhythm
  • lot of respect for Frank Reich, some provisions team needs to make since he’s familiar with most of what the Eagles do
  • excited to have Carson Wentz back, a guy who has “tremendous command of the system right now”
  • doesn’t know how much rust we’ll see from Wentz
  • feels like reading the defense pre-snap is a Wentz strength
  • “excited” about seeing Josh Adams with the first team again
  • team is getting good production out of Corey Clement, no real issue with the amount of snaps he’s played so far

Video of each presser: