I think Martin Mayhew is one of the worst General Managers in the league now and was when he was here as well. In hindsight, Mayhew got bailed out by Matt Stafford and Calvin Johnson. I think Schwartz wasn't a great coach and led an undisciplined team that always made a series of little mistakes. I think he also deserves criticism for hanging onto Scott Linehan and his vanilla offensive system for too long. He also allowed Matt Stafford to be reckless with the football at times and force passes that would be come turnovers.
But Schwartz also got a raw deal here with the **** talent that Mayhew gave him to work with. Now, some of that poor talent may fall on him as well because one would presume he was in the war room on draft day and at least had some input on personnel decisions. Mayhew was just not a good drafter though. He had 1st round picks the likes of Butterfingers Brandon Pettigrew, lazy and unmotivated Nick Fairley, and concussion-prone Jahvid Best. His 2nd round record was a total abomination outside of Darius Slay and maybe Louis Delmas (who I wanted at the time). He drafted a player who potentially had undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia in Titus Young, Ryan Broyles with no ACL, and Mikel Leshoure who got caught driving around with weed all over his car and tried eating it on a traffic stop. The 3rd round is probably where Mayhew did his best, getting DeAndre Levy and Larry Warford. But with so many high profile, high round busts, that type of poor drafting track record is hard for a coach to overcome. Now, if Schwartz was involved in many or all of those personnel moves, I have little sympathy for him.