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Wink Martindale’s defensive philosophy for Giants

Wink Martindale's defensive philosophy for Giants


Dan Salomone: On Jan. 12, 2022, team president John Mara said, “We needed to hit the reset button.” Enter general manager Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll, who most recently helped build the Buffalo Bills into an AFC powerhouse after the franchise went through a 17-year playoff drought.

From Day 1, Schoen and Daboll stressed the importance of getting the right people in the right seats and energizing the building. That has been palpable to everyone from the cafeteria to the football field. “It’s just a contagious energy that’s being brought right now,” veteran defensive lineman Leonard Williams said.

Fast-forwarding to May, we each picked one word to describe the vision of the new regime for an edition of Cover 3, and the words we came up with were “fresh,” “adaptive” and “calculated.” From the personnel side, Schoen was candid about the need to make “tough decisions” to get in better salary cap health before making two draft picks in the top 10 for the first time in Giants history. He also made a series of moves in the football operations department regarding analytics.

“Anything that will help you get better or improve the roster or improve our salary cap situation or our practice habits or injuries, whatever it may be, I’m open to that,” Schoen said this offseason. “I’d be an idiot not to be open to it. Over the last few years, I’ve immersed myself in the data and worked with some really smart people that have helped us make good decisions based off that.”

From an Xs and Os standpoint, Daboll believes in empowering players to play fast and aggressively.

“You never want to throw interceptions, but I think just the idea to be aggressive and take your shots and see if you can make something happen,” quarterback Daniel Jones said. “Kind of let the receivers know that we’re going to do that, we’re going to give you all opportunities to make plays and we’re counting on you to make plays in situations. I think that’s kind of a mindset he has to attack a defense, attack…

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