The New York Giants got the win over the New England Patriots in their preseason opener last week, but Patriots head coach Bill Belichick didn’t appear thrilled by how the Giants got their win.
Earlier this week, Belichick seemed unhappy that Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale had his players blitzing often rather than using the vanilla defenses that manage the game.
“With what the Giants were doing, there’s a lot of reasons for some of the things that we did just to try to manage the game,” Belichick said. “So, just leave it at that.”
This morning, Martindale was asked to give his thoughts on Belichick’s comments. Martindale’s response was perfect:
“We’re on to Cincinnati,” Martindale said, referencing Belichick’s iconic quote from 2014.
Clearly Martindale does not care at all about Belichick’s complaining.
Wink Martindale has been tasked with turning around a Giants defense that has ranked in the bottom half of the league for four of the last five years. He isn’t exactly flush with defensive playmakers that he can build a scheme around.
Martindale is going to have to do a lot with very little if he wants his new defense to be up to par. That will probably mean a lot of blitzing during the regular season.
But Martindale may have tipped his hand by doing so in the preseason. In using his regular season plans in the preseason, he’s giving the Giants’ September opponents something to plan for already.
Did Wink Martindale make a mistake by having the Giants blitz so much against the Patriots?