Legally, the Browns have every right to try to force Jim Schwartz to fulfill his contract or choose retirement. He really doesn’t have any other options if they want to take the hard way.
“Doing the right thing” would entail letting him out of his deal, which the Browns did previously under a different regime with offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan.
It might be time again to do the right thing and let Schwartz walk.
This isn’t to excuse his behavior over the past week. I’ve spoken to people in the NFL on both sides of the aisle — those who believe Schwartz has every right to be furious and disrespected about being passed over as head coach, and those who feel he is overreacting and should do the job he was hired to do.
I’d lean more toward him overreacting, while acknowledging it’s complicated. He was signed to be the defensive coordinator, and that’s still his role, though lines get blurred when emotions are involved. Schwartz is 59 and likely believes this was his last chance at a head coaching role, so it’s understandable why he’d be upset.
He hasn’t exactly been a hot name in the interview cycles the past few years, although he did interview with the Baltimore Ravens this time.
I also understand why the Browns wanted to retain him. He has built an excellent defense in Cleveland, and he is highly regarded as an excellent defensive mind, although I disagreed with how hard the Browns were pushing Schwartz on all of their candidates — particularly since he was one of the finalists for the job.
The Atlanta Falcons entered their coaching search wanting to retain defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, but that was a bit easier to manage because he wasn’t a candidate for the head job. He never interviewed for it. He wasn’t led to believe he had a shot at it. It was always going to be up to the head coach whether he stayed in Atlanta, and new hire Kevin Stefanski ultimately chose to keep him.
That’s not what happened here. Schwartz was seated at the same table as Monken and Nate Scheelhaase, if only for a few days. He has since been sent back to the kids’ table.
Todd Monken has to build a staff he can trust. The Browns are all too familiar with power struggles and toxic squabbling within a coaching staff. They managed to avoid it for six years under Stefanski and can’t go back there now. If there was any chance at salvaging the relationship, Monken seemed to drop a mortar on Schwartz during his introductory news conference this week.
“I didn’t take this job because of Jim Schwartz,” Monken said, proving that he’s blunt and direct even when it hurts.
Nobody wanted to say much about Schwartz at Monken’s news conference, which was the right call. It wasn’t a day to talk about the defensive coordinator. It was a day for Monken and his big opportunity. But the Browns had to know there was a chance Schwartz would react this way to being passed over again, especially when it’s a first-time head coach within his age demographic, and they chose to do it anyway.
On the field, there is a “next man up” mentality when players are injured or traded. The same is true in coaching. Schwartz is an excellent defensive coordinator, but he isn’t irreplaceable. He also has a reputation within the league as someone who can be difficult to get along with at times. One of the concerns I heard during the hiring process was that if the Browns went with Scheelhaase, a younger, inexperienced candidate, they were exposing themselves to a potential power struggle within the staff.
Sure, the Browns can hold Schwartz accountable for his contract — to an extent — and drag him into work every day. Players like David Njoku and even Myles Garrett have made trade requests and were told no. Both players eventually stayed.
Schwartz is in a bit of a different category. He has made enough money in his life that he can walk away from the NFL and retire, and there isn’t anything the Browns can do about it.
There is another civil, more peaceful alternative: Just let him go. Thank him for his service, for rebuilding this unit, and allow him to pursue other opportunities. There aren’t any coordinator jobs open currently, although that could change. He may have to work as a consultant again for a year and try to get back in during the next hiring cycle.
If the Browns truly admire and respect Schwartz as much as they claim, they can prove it by doing the right thing and letting him out of his contract. Not every dispute has to end in litigation.