New York Giants defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale is fond of saying that if you are wearing a Giants helmet, you are going to attack on defense. That’s always been Wink’s modus operandi — when he was the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator from 2018 through 2021, Baltimore regularly led the NFL in blitz rate. That has transferred to the Giants in Martindale’s first year on the job. In 2021, Bug Blue blitzed exactly 25% of the time. This season? No team has blitzed at a higher rate than the Giants’ 39.7%, and it isn’t close — in the regular season, the Arizona Cardinals ranked second in blitz rate at 34.5%.
So, you know what you’re going to get when facing a Wink Martindale defense from that perspective. And generally, he’ll throw in a high rate of man coverage to go along with all those blitzes. That was what the Giants did through Week 14, which marked their first of two regular-season games against the Philadelphia Eagles, who they’ll face in Saturday night’s divisional round contest.
