Wink Martindale Share Excitement Over Giants' Defense's Progress

The New York Giants defense, as envisioned by defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, is falling into place.

Author:
Gene Clemons
Publish date:
Aug 21, 2022 8:36 AM EDT

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New York Giants

The New York Giants defense is on track toward evolving into what defensive coordinator Wink Martindale envisioned.

That's good news for the Giants--and bad news for their opponents.

Martindale has been true to his word about wanting to be a bully that dictates to the offense rather than one that sits back and reacts to what's thrown at it.

He has the unit flexing its muscles daily against the Giants offense and in last week's preseason opener against the Patriots when his version of a spiked vanilla defense was not embraced by Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.

But Martindale isn't worried about the opinions of others, including future Hal of Fame head coaches. He's zoomed in on getting the Giants defense ready to play its part in contributing to a hopefully successful first season under head coach Brian Daboll.

“We haven’t game-planned any pressures," Martindale said last week. "We’re just running our different pressures."

Martindale's defense is predicated on flawless communication between the players. If one iota of that process is off, chances are high the defense will be as well. So every so often, such as this past Thursday, Martindale will dial things back just a tad to check on the communication process.

But make no mistake about it. This is perhaps one of the most aggressive styles of defenses the Giants have had in years, a system that, interestingly, Martindale opined a lot of the perceptions around his defense and how it is employed is overblown.

“Believe it or not, I think sometimes all that the pressure stuff gets hyped up to – it’s a snowball effect," he said. "I think that we have an attacking-style defense, and I’m not going to apologize for that. But you also play front and coverages like we did.”

Martindale believes that regardless of what they are doing on the back end, getting pressure on the quarterback is the most important key to success because it speeds up the quarterback's decision-making and forces them into bad decisions.

"When you pressure a quarterback, you want to change the picture," Martindale said. "I always say, 'Pressure breaks pipes.' You want to make him think fast. You want to hit the quarterback or make him make a quick decision that he doesn’t want to make. So, that’s how we go about games in the best ways that we can attack the quarterback.”

That aggression upfront still requires defensive backs to cover well on the back end. With cornerback Adoree’ Jackson on one side, second-year player Aaron Robinson saw a lot of targets against the Patriots, and they were able to get the best of him on a few occasions.

“First of all, he’s had a tremendous camp," Martindale said of Robinson before discussing how the cornerback played.

"There were some 50/50 balls. I mean, you can’t have a penalty down there in the red zone. You can’t have a lack of communication because that’s just kryptonite to your red zone defense or your two-minute defense in any of those situations. But we preach and harp on that.

"I don’t think it was just Aaron Robinson. They might’ve just wanted to see if that receiver could win. I don’t think it was personally on A-Rob."

This week, Martindale will be getting a big and key piece to his defense back into the lineup with the return of outside linebacker Azeez Ojulari, recently activated off the NFI list following a hamstring strain he suffered before camp.

Martindale said he loves everything about Ojulari's game. Still, one thing, in particular, stands out: the linebacker's footwork which Martindale said outside linebackers coach Drew Wilkins drills with his players every day.

“I was just watching their feet like I’m looking at your guys’ feet right now. I wasn’t even looking up. And I was like, ‘Man, that guy has good feet.’ I look up, and it’s him. I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s right. He’s practicing. It’s good.’ We’re excited about seeing him back. He’s a playmaker. He’s a good football player.”