I had to leave after the game ended, so I didn’t see the whole kerfuffle at the time. I gotta say, Schwartz, man, you’re supposed to just shake your head and walk away like a professional, not chase after him and try and start a fistfight in the middle of the fucking stadium. You looked like a baby.
…or maybe an angry ferret.
He does not shove him out of the way. Schwartz moves away under his own power. Also he’s 6’3" and 215 pounds so I’d love to see what happens if you took a swing at him.
You people act like he spit in Schwartz’ face. Good Lord.
I’m a huge Lions and Schwartz fan (in case anyone wasn’t aware :), and I’m 100% with Bill on this one. Schwartz looked like a petulant little kid.
Also: next time he’s chewing out one of his players for going off on someone and getting a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, how seriously are they going to take him? Lead by example, dipshit.
If Schwartz had let it go and said something later, it wouldn’t be as big a deal as it is. He started the melee and somehow that’s on Harbaugh. Again I am not defending what Harbaugh did but if it’s not OK for Harbaugh to be happy it’s not OK for Schwartz to be such a baby. No winners there in terms of conduct.
And yet Tom Jackson on ESPN is calling out Harbaugh for that. Weird.
See that doesn’t really bother me. Well the leaving key players in does, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for that, from running new plays in action to denying play to replacements that didn’t practice well. But I’m a believer in not letting up. Doing so sets a dangerous precedent. Mercy shouldn’t be a part of professional sports.
After the game is over however, there’s tons of reasons for acting with courtesy and respect. A coach doesn’t walk onto the field in order to celebrate with his players, he does it shake his opponent’s hand. Damn well better do it with respect. Makes no sense to antagonize a team like the Lions. They acted on a grudge for a loss to the Pats last year in a pre-season game this year. That Harbaugh makes this faux pas and can’t take it seriously afterwards is eye brow raising. Schwartz didn’t act brilliantly after the incident, but he was forced into doing something rather than lose face for the disrespect. I can’t understand Harbaugh at all. It’s handing out ammunition.
Sarkus
3326
The only full responsibility I’ve seen Harbaugh take so far was his references about his “too strong” of handshake, and that was with a grin on his face. If he’s made an honest apology then that’s great. That’s not what this sounds like:
Edit: or watch the video here.
And Schwartz’s behavior after (or in the past) is not really relevant to Harbaugh’s behavior, nor is the fact that I’m a Seahawks fan. If this was just about biased people taking it too seriously there wouldn’t be so many ex-coaches and others saying Harbaugh went too far. And there wouldn’t be a general consensus that both Harbaugh and Schwartz will be fined by the league for their behavior.
Oh so they took away that win from the Niners? No I don’t think so. They won the game and if the inappropriate behavior Harbaugh displayed can never be forgiven even after he apologizes, then I guess that’s the way it goes.
Nobody has suggested the win was taken away. What has happened, though, is that this became a bigger national story today then the 49ers win. That’s where Harbaugh and Schwartz are both at fault, because it was a close game between two surprise teams and that should have been the story.
Analogy for Schwartz: more Dalton, less Ralphie.
I hadn’t heard about that. What was it?
He just won a big game. He was happier about that then he was solemnly apologetic about that minor faux pas. Schwartz was not “forced” to do anything, certainly not forced to start an actual fistfight or whatever he was trying to do by running after Harbaugh and screeching at him like a spider monkey.
“It’s on me” isn’t an apology and taking full blame? It is to me. He even admitted he forget to apologize on the field. He’s smiling because he won the game, not because he’s happy about shaking Schwartz’ hand the wrong way. Did you see the game? It was as tough a win as SF has gotten since Steve Mariucci was head coach.
It’s 100% relevant, what a ridiculous thing to say. after the Cowboys win Jim went EEEEYAHHH BOOOM MOTHERFUCKERRR!!! and then jogged 10 or 20 yards to shake Jason Garrett’s hand. You don’t think Garret saw that? And again, it is not like Harbaugh spit in his face. Nothing he did warranted that flipout by Schwartz.
Ha ha, yes it is. That’s OK, by the way!
No one is saying Harbaugh didn’t act in poor form. However, that poor form does not excuse the ensuing melee that Schwartz started. It just doesn’t. If John Harbaugh had punched Todd Haley in the face after refusing to shake his hand, that wouldn’t’ve been excusable either.
In exactly one week nobody will care. Also, it wouldn’t be as big a story if Schwartz hadn’t acted like such a baby.
sluggo
3330
We’ll obviously disagree here, but I think that’s understating it. Harbaugh absolutely gave him a decent little shove, and while I think it was due more to the energy of the moment and not malicious, I can understand Schwartz having a WTF reaction to it and wanting to have a few words with Harbaugh.
It was kinda subtle. Last year the Lions were beating the shit out of Brady in the first half and some of their players started puffing their chests a little early. As it would happen, the Pats came back to win the game and a few of them mocked the boasting of the Lions causing a brief and minor scuffle on the field at the end. Typical stuff. This year, the Pats-Lions pre-season game was riddled with scuffles during the game that would have seemed random without knowing about last year’s game. That team knows how to hold grudges.
He just won a big game. He was happier about that then he was solemnly apologetic about that minor faux pas. Schwartz was not “forced” to do anything, certainly not forced to start an actual fistfight or whatever he was trying to do by running after Harbaugh and screeching at him like a spider monkey.
I’m not trying to say Schwartz’s actions were completely defensible, but he was put in a position of being disrespected on the field. The gif doesn’t show how animated Harbaugh was the instant before. Harbaugh barely makes eye contact during the shake and then is acting like he’s in a hurry to get to the other sideline or at least somewhere else. When coaches routinely use disrespect as bulletin board material to motivate players, a coach would be hypocritical if he did nothing when it happens to them on the field. Schwartz flew off the handle, but he should not have been put in that position. It’s more than a minor faux pas and could even be interpreted as a challenge to his legitimacy as a head coach.
“his legitimacy as a head coach”? Please. If you’re an NFL coach and the other guy disrespects you, you give him a sideways look, shrug, and walk off the field like you don’t give a fuck. Chasing after 'em and getting in a little bitch fight is what diminishes you.
Getting all worked up about “respect” is for people who haven’t grown past junior high.
Except it’s routinely used as motivation in the NFL. These guys are professionals, but they are not all grown ups. Part of coaching is manipulating the emotions of your players. Some do it by being dicks (Parcells) others do it by fabricating slings and arrows of disrespect. We can debate the merits of Schwartz’s style of coaching, but Harbaugh had to know he would get a reaction out of him. It’s just a bad move.
…which is why Schwartz was a complete dumbass to overreact the way he did.
I don’t follow. It behooves Schwartz to do that because he’s that kind of coach. How did it help Harbaugh?
It doesn’t have anything to do with Harbaugh. And Schwartz isn’t that kind of coach – or at least he tries not to be – he wants his players to be professional and go kick ass every minute of the game, not fly off the handle and lose their cool. Intensity == good; losing control == bad. Once they’re into their prep for the next game, he doesn’t even want to talk about what happened last week; what happened last year doesn’t even come up – he’s all about what can you do today to make yourself better. The past, and anything beyond the next game, is beside the point.
“I really think it’s Schwartz,” Raiola said, “because from the very first day, it wasn’t, ‘Alright, let’s win this division; let’s win the first game.’ We’re talking about April when he first came in, when we first met as a group. It wasn’t, ‘Let’s talk about our first opponent.’ It was, ‘Let’s talk about today and how we’re going to get better in the weight room today, how we’re going to get better on the field today.’ In practice, at training camp, same thing - it wasn’t the preseason game, it was that day at practice. At the first preseason game, it wasn’t, ‘How are we going to use this to get ready for the first game?’ It was always that game.”
Also: when interviewed, he’s always sheepish about his outbursts on the sidelines – other than gameday, he almost always maintains strict control over his demeanor.
There aren’t really a lot of legitimate reasons for throwing a deep pass when you’re up by 30 with under three minutes to go. The sensible thing to do is to run the ball to keep the clock ticking so that you can get the game over and get off the field quicker with your win instead of extending the game and risking injuries for your players.
I doubt the after the game handshake issue between Schwartz and Harbaugh is anything the players will care about. That’s between the coaches and didn’t involve the players.
I think he wants it both ways. He wants to maintain the focus on what’s immediately in front of them which is good coaching, but at the same time he wants them to remember. I think Belichick is the same way in many respects but Schwartz is clearly emotional at times with/for his players. I’m certainly not saying that every emotional thing he does is calculated, but I do believe that he wants some of that to be in his coaching and in his players. The Lions don’t talk much about how everyone used to dump on them, but the sure act like they remember it.
I’m not saying it’s smart, but if you feel your run offense is dogging it at the end of the game and not trying for the first down, then yeah, it’s legit to call a deep pass.
I doubt the after the game handshake issue between Schwartz and Harbaugh is anything the players will care about. That’s between the coaches and didn’t involve the players.
There were quite a few players that got involved. Harbaugh was practically mobbed before he got into the tunnel.
Thongsy
3340
I don’t follow either now, how would Harbaugh know how Schwartz would react? Just as you state that’s the kind of coach Schwartz is, this is the kind of coach Harbaugh is, he’s an intense and excitable coach. He’ll push and shove his own players, getting himself knocked over before games to get fired up. If there was malice I would understand but there wasn’t. And like others have said, Schwartz isn’t exactly a saint himself.
This isn’t the first faux pas Harbaugh has committed as the Niners coach and it won’t be the last. During the preseason, before the Saints game, the story goes Harbaugh didn’t call up Sean Peyton to go over what kind of plays they were going to run and how long they were going to keep starters in so that pissed Peyton off for breaking protocol and cause him to run all those blitz in the game.
