Guard Geoff Schwartz
August 1, 2015
Q: Was yesterday a big day for you, first day back and healthy?
A: Yeah, I took every rep, so that was even more than I thought I would do. More than I think we planned on. I felt good and we kind of just have to monitor the reps as we go along because the ultimate goal is to be ready to play Week One, not be ready to play the first preseason game. We’ll see how it goes and monitor it. I was pretty pleased, yeah.
Q: The follow-up question would be are you limited in any way?
A: I’m limited in just sometimes it just gets sore or whatever. I’m not going to re-injure it. I’m not worried about that. It’s just a matter of getting the strength back. I was really pleased with how yesterday went, at least the reps wise. I think we’re all a little rusty, but I was pleased.
Q: It seems you guys were playing musical chairs in the spring. Do you guys have an idea, am I going to stay at right guard?
A: I’m fairly certain our offensive line is what we’re going to keep going forward unless there are injuries or something happens. I think we have kind of kept the same group all of OTA’s and obviously opened camp that way. There’s always room for changes, it always happens. There’s always competition. I think the group we roll out now is what we’ve been working with. I know we’re confident, at least up front, that we can get it done.
Q: It’s certainly different than last year.
A: Last year we had a lot of moving parts. I was new and we drafted Weston [Richburg] and Chris [Snee] retired. We had a lot of moving parts and this year it seems to be falling a little better. It just kind of is the way our whole offense is, second year, everyone is kind of more comfortable and we’re moving a little quicker, a little crisper.
Q: I know last year you guys—because of your injury and Brandon Mosley had a back problem -- you guys had flipped the line at sort of the last second. Is there a point as an offensive line member where you feel like that you need to have five guys set?
A: I think the week of the third preseason game, you kind of treat that as like a game week. So, that’s maybe the best time to have a full offensive line kind of what you know because you practice like it’s a [regular reason] Wednesday, like a Thursday, like a Friday. That might be the general time. I don’t know if you say like this day or that day is better to have a group. It’s always better if you kind of keep the same group an entire camp obviously. You get used to playing with each other—the communication, the kind of bonding. So probably that third [preseason] week.
Q: In retrospect, last year, was that crushing that you got injured late and Mosley got hurt and all of a sudden you’re flipping guys last second?
A: Well J.J. [John Jerry] came in and played well. Obviously, Weston was a rookie kind of out of position early on. I know it was different for him to play left guard. That’s kind of the worst time to switch your lineups—I guess last year was after the fourth preseason game. You kind of want to be set going into that game [that] you kind of treat like a game week.
Q: There are a lot of people looking at the offense and saying Eli is playing better and you’ve got all these dynamic receivers. The question mark seems to be can the offensive line gel and get their running game going. Do you guys sit there and say it’s up to us?
A: Well, offensively you kind of go where your offensive line goes, I think, especially running the ball. We have to run the ball better, there’s no question about that, and we know that. We’re going to do what we can to kind of bring that part up. We get the pads on tomorrow, I think, and we’ll start building that up. Without pads on, it’s tough to really judge how good you can become as a run blocker.
Q: Justin Pugh was talking a lot about toughness. Are you guys talking about that, too?
A: I think that kind of goes along with the running game. Not many offensive lines that run the ball well aren’t considered tough. You can say that you want to be tough, but you have to go do it. You have to go out and practice it, you’ve got to go out and do it in games. And that’s our goal, is to go out and do it. We can’t just sit and talk about it. We just have to go do it by force.
Q: Are there any concerns about having a rookie on the left side?
A: I don’t know. I honestly haven’t thought about it too much. I think we’re treating him [Ereck Flowers] like anyone else on the offensive line. We all have to be ready to go and so does he. It’s an accelerated process when you’re a rookie and things are coming in fast, but he’s got a lot of things great things going for him. He’s tough, he’s athletic, he’s smart. He’s got a lot of good building blocks to get him to be ready for the first game.
Q: How much do you guys pay attention to what’s going on with Jason Pierre-Paul?
A: Obviously when you don’t have a franchise player here, you notice. He’s a good guy to practice with, he makes guys better. Obviously it’s disappointing that he hurt himself. But I don’t know if we notice it much on film. We’re not watching the defensive line, we’re focused on what we’ve got to do to get better. But when you get to practice against guys like that, it can only make you better. It would have been good for Ereck to work against him.
Q: Do you look at the pictures and pay attention to that?
A: Someone sent it to me, but I mean, I don’t know. He’s my teammate, I hope he gets better. I hope he’s back as soon as possible. I don’t really put too much else into it.
