There is still a lot of buzzing surrounding the New York Giants’ defensive game plan in last week’s 23-21preseason victory over the New England Patriots.
Usually in early preseason games, defensive coordinators tend to simplify things to get his players’ feet wet. Not Wink Martindale, the Giants’ first-year coordinator.
The Patriots decided to sit their starters. The Giants — with so many new players, a new scheme and new coaches — played their starters well into the game.
Martindale didn’t hold anything back in the game, as noted in the New York Post:
Martindale sent extra rushers at rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe on 17 of his 33 dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. The Patriots faced 21 blitzes from the Giants — 13 more than in any of their previous four Week 1 preseason games, according to NESN.
Patriots head coach Bill Bellichick had to reel his offensive game plan in as a result and couldn’t run play-action passes or anything too elaborate.
“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.”
Giants safety Julian Love clarified the Giants’ philosophy on Monday.
“I’m sure they tell Wink like, ‘hey, you have certain pressures you can run,’ or the amount of pressure they tell him. Like, ‘hey, this is your allotted amount.’ But nothing to the players, whatever is called we’re going to play it hard,” Love told reporters on Monday.
“He has it dialed up. His plan going for weeks one, two, and three in the regular season, he’s pacing right now, he wants to show what he wants to in the preseason, and we’re going to get to them eventually, but he has a plan. Some of them are going to be more exotic, some are going to be simple, whatever they scheme up and think is best for that opponent.”
The unwritten agreement between coaches during the preseason didn’t prevent Martindale to call his regular number of blitzes. Love didn’t see anything out of ordinary with what Wink did.
“I know a lot happens between coaches before preseason games, gentleman agreements, or whatever. I thought we were fine, I thought everything we played was very standard in terms of what you want to see young guys getting,” Love said. “So, I’m not sure about all of that stuff, but I thought our plan wasn’t anything exotic on defense. I thought it was very cut and dry on defense.”
