Eat My Schwartz

by Geoff Schwartz

  Obviously, defensive linemen might strut and preen after they do something really good against a team. But it’s probably just as much to psych themselves up as it is to trash you.

  Geoff on NFL Media Coverage

  Every time there’s a story on the news about an NFL player failing a drug test or getting arrested it kind of drives me crazy. There’s a perception that the league is filled with a bunch of violent, thoughtless criminals, but it’s just not true.

  Researchers at the University of Texas in Dallas compared the arrest rate from 2000 to 2013 of American men between the ages of twenty and thirty-nine and the arrest rate of the 1,900-odd players in the NFL. And guess what they found?

  For most years, the total arrest rate for the general population was between one-and-a-half to two times as high as the total rate for NFL players.

  I understand the NFL is a multibillion-dollar business, and that as football players, just by being in the league, we are instantly anointed with the glow of celebrity. Sports teams are these huge, larger-than-life institutions in American popular culture. As players we are part of those institutions.

  When a couple of guys in the NFL get into trouble with violence or DUIs or drug possession, I feel those events get because everyone publishes these stories. The media just piles on, obviously because people love to read those stories. It doesn’t matter who it is—all-pro star or second-string rookie—it is going to get reported.

  If a few engineers at IBM or Yahoo get busted for drugs or a DUI, is that going to make the news? Is anyone going to discuss it on SportsCenter? No way! Will there be stories about what’s wrong with IBM or Yahoo’s recruiting process? Or about how so many employees are out of control in the tech sector? I don’t think so.

  What bothers me about the amount of coverage is that 99 percent of NFL players are great guys—family guys, great fathers, great husbands, guys who get along great within their communities. Sure, we all have our moments and weaknesses; nobody is perfect. Not the coaches or the owners or the players. But a lot of us give back and work with charities. We do that out of a sense of community, out of a system of values that says that other people and causes are important.

  And players are busy, too. They have work commitments and family commitments. The bigger the star, the more special requests he gets.

  I like to be able to give back. I like volunteering in the off-season to coach high school kids. I enjoyed speaking at a Holocaust survivors gala. I’m trying to do more work in the Jewish community, because I’ve realized how much it means to the community that my brother and I represent another side of Jewish men.

  You can bet there are plenty of guys who do a lot more than I do. And yet their actions are overshadowed by a few guys who weren’t thinking, who were used to maybe bending rules, who lashed out in anger. Are there players with serious issues in the NFL? Of course. But it makes me mad when these ugly stories dominate the conversation. It is not a true representation of the NFL and the vast majority of the players.

  Mitch on Travel in the NFL

  People always ask me about traveling in the NFL. What are the private jets like?

  I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s not like we’re zipping around on Learjets outfitted with slick ultra-modern furniture. Although that may be how the owners travel.

  We fly commercial planes that are leased from major airlines. Cleveland seems to be a major hub for United, so that is what the Browns fly. Although these are commercial planes, the experience is a lot nicer and more hassle-free than a regularly scheduled commercial flight.

  The coolest thing is that we’re able to drive our cars to the airport and park right next to the airplane in the hangar. There’s always a TSA security screening next to the plane, so we go through that and just pop right onto the plane.

  There are no assigned seats but, at least on the Browns, some of the veterans have staked out standard positions, and you either avoid them or you’ll get booted to a different area. If you are lucky, you’ll get your own row. But at most two guys will share a row of three seats. We are definitely not cramped together, and we definitely do not go hungry. The air hostesses always have a lot of food options—such as Dove bars and candy—that I rarely see on commercial flights.

  The flights are low-key. Most guys listen to music, watch movies, play video games, or read. Or sleep. The same stuff everyone else does on planes.

  After the game, there’s not a huge amount of time. We shower and maybe have a few minutes to have a postgame chat with any family or friends that were at the game. Then—and this was surprising to me when it first happened—there will usually be a TSA security check right there at the stadium, so we are screened before we get on the bus. When the bus pulls up to the plane at the airport, we all hop in.

  Geoff on Prayer in Football

  Pregame prayer sessions are a tradition in football. We didn’t do that on my high school team, but when I got to college teams had prayer sessions, and the pros have them, too.

  Basically all that happens is the coach leads players in the Lord’s Prayer. It has never struck me as a big dramatic event—it’s just part of the pregame that gives some players comfort, and I think that’s totally fine. I don’t participate in it, and nobody has ever bothered me about it.

  I guess different teams and coaches have different styles. Mitch told me that the Browns have thirty seconds of silence so people can pray—or not pray—however they want to. That makes sense to me, too. Whatever comforts the players.

  I couldn’t resist telling Mitch that with the luck the Browns have had, a team prayer might not be a bad idea.

  For some reason he didn’t laugh.

  Mitch on O-Line Performance

  I did the O-Line Performance experience with Geoff in the spring and summer of 2013. It was a little weird for me, being that LeCharles and the Cleveland Browns have had a rocky history together. But Geoff was raving about it, and I figured I should give it a shot.

  It was a great experience. Totally focused and well-thought-out.

  LeCharles works different muscle groups that don’t always get focused on in the weight room, but even if you are doing workouts with the normal muscle groups he has pretty cool alternatives. The great thing to me is that you end up working out of a position that echoes something you’d do on the line, as opposed to a normal lifting position. So the drills feel more practical and useful when you are doing them.

  I have had a lot of great coaches at Cal and Cleveland, but LeCharles is probably the best I’ve ever worked with at pushing me to my limits. He believes everything should be high intensity. So if I’m doing a lift and he thinks it’s too easy he’ll throw more weight on there. He never lets you plateau or have an easy or off day. Everything is geared toward pushing the linemen to the best of their capability.

  That means the sessions can be brutal. Literally there were days when I had to sit and rest and recover for fifteen minutes before I could even move. And that’s after a ninety-minute workout. It’s that intense.

  I may go back to Arizona in the future. Right now, though, I feel like my fitness routine is where it needs to be, so I’m not currently the disciple my brother is. But I could be.

  Geoff on Social Media

  Twitter and social media have changed the world in radical ways. It is a great way to share information. I love how fast news of a terrific play—like Odell Beckham Jr.’s catch—can just explode around the world. It’s great that people are able to share opinions so easily, but it’s also created some negative side effects, like Twitter mobs, trolls, and extensive bad press if you mis-Tweet.

  It makes you think twice about going on social media and weighing in on important subjects—or even innocent subjects—because you don’t know how people are going to take it. It’s just not worth the explaining and clarifying, or enduring trolling. Sometimes I wonder if I’m better off just not sharing my opinion at all.

  Mitch on Penalties

  I’ve had a holdi
ng call or two I thought were bogus calls by the ref. When that happens, I get pretty upset, but I make sure to shake it off immediately and refocus. Later, I’ll go back and look at the film the next day and try to figure out who screwed up: me or the referee. Often, it winds up being a gray-area judgment call.

  There are times, though, when it is clear-cut. And, for me, that’s the rare instance where I’m holding on purpose. It doesn’t happen too often, but if I get beat and I don’t want the guy to get my quarterback, I just hold ’em. To me, that’s the better alternative to letting my quarterback get sacked. It stinks because I got beat, but holding can be the best alternative for a bad situation.

  As for false starts, I think some players might not care about them as much as coaches do. Every yard matters, which is true, of course. And false starts can be frustrating. But even if a lineman commits a false start, it might not be the lineman’s fault. A lot of times there’s miscommunication at some point. The quarterback will call one cadence in the huddle and then go into a different cadence at the line, and you’re locked into your assignment and you don’t really hear the change. Or it’s incredibly noisy and a change doesn’t get echoed down the line and you are the only one who jumps. Or a new quarterback is subbed in and his rhythms are different than the guy you are used to working with. Yes, the lineman jumped. Is it his fault? Not always.

  And there’s one other reason a lineman may jump offsides that the announcers in the booth would have no way of knowing. Sometimes, on some teams—never with the Browns and our awesome Alex Mack—a center may miss his cue, and so a guard or tackle might get out of the gate before the ball has moved. In instances like this, the guy who gets flagged is usually raked over the coals, but in that instance, he’s sort of blameless.

  Geoff on Game-Planning

  Game-planning is really one of the most interesting aspects of football. Coaches do the bulk of it on Mondays and Tuesdays during the season, but they game-plan every night, really, breaking down film and devising plays and strategies to exploit what they see, and ultimately creating a situational road map for what we’ll be doing on Sunday. Then they map these plays out on paper—there are even computer programs online to track and format things—and position coaches hand the plans out during our meetings. It’s our job to learn ’em as quickly as we can. We don’t have that much time, but this is one aspect of the game that has always come easily to me. I understand how to play this game from a mental perspective and it’s helped me because I’m a guy who coaches can rely on, who’s not going to make mental mistakes. I’m able to absorb a game plan and go out and do my job. It makes a big difference, because at the end of the day, all five men on the offensive line have to be on the same page to make things work. The job isn’t just about being physically ready. All five men have to know what they are doing, where they should be, who they should block. If you have that down, you end up looking good. If you have just one guy that messes up—from missing a blocking assignment to moving before the snap—it can wreck a game.

  One thing I really respect about coaches in the NFL is that, as hard as we work, many of them work harder—although they don’t burn quite as many calories as the players. They are breaking down tape at night and identifying the weakest link in the other team’s chain, while we are getting our beauty sleep. They are putting together the new plays to focus on. They are diagramming opposition schemes and our responses based on field position, specific downs, and yardage requirements.

  In the age of big data, they are able to access an opposing team’s tendencies—not to mention our own habits—a lot more quickly and accurately now. But that also gives them more options to consider. The Giants are more focused on data than any team I’ve ever played on. For better or worse, they grade every player on every play. None of the other coaches I’ve played for have done that, but Tom Coughlin clearly believes in it. And since he has two Super Bowl rings, I’ll defer to his judgment. It’s helpful to know how your coaches perceive your execution and to get critical feedback. Hey, if someone is dissatisfied with my performance, I’d like to know about it as soon as possible. And on the other side of the equation, being told I am performing well—the old positive reinforcement trick—feels really good, too.

  Mitch on His Teammates

  One of the awesome things about being in Cleveland is the offensive line and the continuity and friendship we have. I think offensive lines are often tight, but we have three amazing veterans anchoring the line and they are first-class players and people. It helps when you enjoy the company of the guys on your team, especially during training camp, because you are spending pretty much every second of fourteen-hour days with the same group of people. We’re good friends, not just because we work together, but because we get along really well. We go out to dinner frequently. We have potlucks. We cook together.

  John Greco, our right guard, may be the ideal Cleveland Brown. He was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, where he grew up a Browns fan. He played college ball at Toledo. I like to joke that he’s the team’s LeBron James—a local kid who grew up to play for the home team. John is the best chef of all of us, an all-pro cook. His family is of Italian ancestry, so he has completely nailed a lot of Italian cuisine. But he is fantastic at improvising in the kitchen, too. When we were hanging out, people gravitate toward his dishes. A couple of years ago on a Sunday night after a game we got together and were just hanging out watching some football. We put up some pork shoulders on a smoker, and the shoulders cooked for about fourteen hours. The next day he pulled them out and wrapped them up until the late afternoon. Then he whipped up a seafood mac and cheese. Together, it was edible bliss.

  I’ve talked a bunch about Joe Thomas. He is a true outdoorsman, totally into hunting and fishing and eating what he has caught. I mean, when Joe was a senior in college, he turned down a trip to New York to attend the NFL draft in order to go fishing on Lake Michigan with his dad. He is also an avid gardener. I think of him as the ultimate self-sufficient foodie. And by that, I don’t mean he can cook a thousand different things; I mean that he hunts, he sows, he reaps, and he eats. Joe always seems to find time to do charity work and has won a slew of honors for much of his community outreach. As I’ve said, he’s a rock solid mentor and player.

  My old Cal teammate Alex Mack is a fascinating guy. In my opinion, he is the league’s best center—and I guess I’m not alone in that opinion, as he has one of the biggest contracts in the NFL. He may also be one of the smartest guys in the league, too: he won the Draddy Award as college football’s top scholar athlete. He’s a huge travel buff. Every year it seems like he goes to three or four different places. My rookie year he went to visit troops in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

  So you can see I’m not just blowing smoke when I say my closest teammates are tremendously smart, adventurous, talented guys. It is an honor and pleasure to play with them. Seriously. I consider myself lucky to work with them.

  Geoff on the Giants

  People talk about leadership a lot in sports. I really didn’t give leadership much thought as a benchmark when I was making my decision to come to the Giants. I mean, I knew Coach Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning had won two Super Bowl championships together, and that had my attention—I wanted to be part of a winning culture. But I never asked myself why they won.

  Now that I’ve been here nearly two years, I can see why.

  Coughlin is an incredible coach. Just his energy level alone can motivate the team. For a guy in his late sixties to put in eighty to a hundred hours a week, and to be completely focused, well, that is truly leading by example.

  Another great thing about him is that he is the polar opposite of some other recent New York coaches. There’s no bluster, just honesty and insight.

  And when he does aim to inspire, he chooses short, no-BS quotes, which have clear, instructive messages, like, “Be where your feet are,” which means stay centered and focused on the task at hand, whether it’s lifting weights or exploding off the lin
e to make sure we get a first down on third and one.

  I often say football is a lot more mental than people realize, and many of these “Coughlinisms” are offered up as a way to focus players, and to help us control our aggression in the most effective way. Coach gave us one from legendary basketball coach John Wooden, “Be quick, but don’t hurry,” which to me is about being efficient and preparing yourself in a thorough, focused manner. These adages can help inspire and direct a player throughout the day.

  When you take those things together, it feels like a focused, strategically conceived environment. There are times when I feel it is a privilege to learn, to watch, and to be led.

  I feel the same way about working with Eli Manning. He is the most impressive guy on the team. He’s been the quarterback for twelve years in the biggest media market in the world and he has conducted himself like the consummate pro.

  Sometimes he gets beaten up in the tabloids and on talk radio, but he never loses his cool. He never outsources losses, although there is almost always plenty of blame to share in every loss. He just remains confident and diplomatic. There are no diva moments with Eli. Obviously, the guy is extremely competitive, but he’s laid-back. The media doesn’t affect him, he just comes to work, does his job.

  And really, the man has been mind-bogglingly effective at his job. I thought it was ironic at the beginning of the 2015 season, when we had some tough losses, his clock management was questioned. This is a guy who has led some of the greatest late-game and late-season comebacks in the history of the game.

  Maybe he has some sort of secret support system that we don’t know about—shrinks, gurus, whatever. Or maybe it’s in those golden Manning genes. But given the tremendous pressure he faces, however he does it, it’s really inspiring.

  Mitch on Johnny Manziel

  Johnny’s public persona is a little different than what we see in the locker room. As far as his whole party animal reputation, well, I’m sure when he wants to have a fun time he goes pretty hard at that. In fact, there were mornings I could definitely tell Johnny was messed up. But despite that, in terms of interacting with his teammates, he’s a really nice guy.