By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
If there was one group that opened the preseason with a solid performance, it was the Eagles defense, that got off to a quick start with five turnovers, between the defensive group and special teams group, including a red zone interception that sealed the 17-9 win over Tampa Bay.
But just because defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz's rushing-the-passer mentality was one display doesn't mean he's an open book when it comes to scheme.
"I'd rather not comment on scheme stuff," Schwartz said. "There's a lot of different things they are asked to do things within schemes. There's a lot of opponents that are reading you guys.
"The thing that is interesting here is that I used to be a one-man shop when it comes to that. We have a whole department that researches stuff like that. I don't think it does anybody any good to advertise some things. Maybe other teams aren't aware of some new trends. I hate to be boring, but I think I'll just take that approach."
In Schwartz's first media availability since the preseason opener, he was asked to evaluate the team defense in the first game. While Schwartz said he wouldn't offer grades, he offered both positives and negatives to the team's performance.
"As a defense, we held them to nine points and that's the bottom line with anything," Schwartz said. "One thing I was very encouraged by is that we had just two defensive penalties. Typically a first preseason game, you're trying to put a lot of fires out. And penalties come from either guys who don't know what to do or guys in bad positions and we had very little of that. I was proud of the guys for that."
But just as easily as the praise came, the criticism came as well. While Schwartz shed some light on how the Eagles may have been able to effectively create turnovers, he also felt the defense could have done a lot more.
"You can emphasize it all you want, but you've got to have players," Schwartz said. "Giving a speech or putting a powerpoint up or making it the emphasis of a drill doesn't get it done on the field. I think a lot of it comes from rushing the passer. You saw two of them came from knocking the ball away from the quarterback. Quarterbacks are very vulnerable to fumbles in the pocket, so if you can hit them in the pocket, you get some balls out or they throw too quick into coverage. We had a bunch of turnovers. We should have had more. We dropped a bunch of interceptions. I'm not giving pats on the back for what we did, we probably should have had more."
Schwartz was also asked about the evaluation process, something he won't rush into. The decisions will work themselves out, the defensive coordinator said.
"It's still early in the preseason," Schwartz said. "It's too hard to tell. It was difficult, the way the game went, just because we scored twice on short fields. And we had a couple special teams plays and a bunch of punts right in a row. That was difficult on a lot of those backup guys that ended up playing once they got to the second quarter, a situation they're not in if it is a real game. It really wasn't a true game situation.
"For the record, we don't really have a first group. We're still working to find out who our first group is. I don't like to tag anybody after the first preseason game or even before the first preseason game. That's going to be earned over all of the training camp practices and all of the preseason games."
So when can we expect those decisions? Don't hold your breath. The Eagles are going to put due diligence into making those decisions.
"Sometime before the opener," Schwartz said with a laugh. "I like to see good players on the field and there's a lot of things that go into that. You just got to let it play and whatever way it comes out, comes out. You can set an artificial deadline, and we don't want to do that. We want to give everybody an opportunity to earn their stripes."
You can watch Schwartz's press conference below.
