Wink Martindale Enjoying Giants Defense's Growth

Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale's vision for the defense was evident last week against Washington.

Author:
Gene Clemons
Publish date:
Dec 22, 2022 10:00 AM EST

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New York Giants

New York Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale was in an extra festive mood and not necessarily due to the holiday season.

Martindale was discussing how outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux and the entire defensive front dominated last week's game at Washington.

Thibodeaux, who had a breakout game that featured 12 tackles, a big strip-sack forced fumble returned for a touchdown, and a host of little plays that didn't make it onto the stat sheet but were nonetheless important offered a taste of just how dominating he can be.

And for Martindale, who has been one of Thibodeaux's staunchest supporters, he's finally able to sit back and say, "I told you so!" to those who doubted whether Thibodeaux would ever live up to his draft hype.

"It was fun to watch," Martindale said. "I keep telling you all this: He’s working on the little things. He’s getting better every week. I think that was an accumulation of all the work that he’s done. As I said, it was a lot of fun to watch."

It was not just Thibodeaux who found success against the Commanders. The entire defensive front showed up and helped keep the Giants in the game.

"They did a nice job of rushing the quarterback, especially when we needed it, and not just Kayvon, but Azeez (Ojulari)," said Martindale.

"Getting back to Kayvon, obviously the sack, strip, fumble for a touchdown was a huge play for us. But an even bigger play, I thought, was when he was in coverage and came out of his coverage when the quarterback started scrambling.

"He tackled him on the one-yard line down there. That was a huge play for us. We always talk about there are going to be big plays in this game. Both sides of the football get paid. Just get him down to give us a chance to stand. There is no play more evident than that one that he gave us a place to stand, and we were able to come up with the stop."

For as pleased as Martindale was with last week's performance, this week, the Giants defense has another big task in front of it when it tries to slow down the Minnesota Vikings and their All-World receiver Justin Jefferson.

"I told the defense. I said that he’s one of the top two receivers in this league, and he’s not number two," Martindale said. "He’s had a phenomenal year – their whole offense has. It’s one of those things that they throw the ball, and he could be in double or triple coverage, and he still catches it. I know it’s fun for the fans to watch. It’s not very fun for defensive coordinators."

Martindale was asked if it was possible to single-guard Jefferson in certain spots.

"I don’t want to say you can’t do it. As I said, you can double or triple team him, and he still catches the ball," he said.

"If you are going to any type of one-on-one situation, you better pick the right spot to do it. So, I think that you got to keep things spinning for (Minnesota Vikings quarterback) Kirk (Cousins) back there because if you just sit in one simple front and coverage, he’ll tear you apart."

Martindale also addressed a few other topics during his weekly press briefing with reporters.

On what happened with now former linebacker Tae Crowder: "I think that it was one of those things where it just didn’t work out with the expectation of execution, and things just kept building up and building up. And you want to give a guy time to correct it, and we just didn’t have the time for him to correct it."

On a possible larger role for safety/inside linebacker Landon Collins: "I thought he did a nice job, and excited to see where he goes moving forward," he said, adding that he was "very comfortable" with possibly giving Collins a larger role in the defense.