Good news for the Giants: Wink Martindale is staying put. The heralded defensive coordinator is out of the running to be the Colts’ next head coach, according to multiple reports.
Our take: There was never much chance Martindale was getting the job, and fears about his departure were a bit irrational. Sure, anything was and is possible with Jim Irsay’s quixotic coaching search. And Martindale does carry a Bruce Arians-esque charm; who doesn’t love a salty, highly-quotable old football guy who seems very fun to drink with? That said: The Colts need to get a young quarterback and develop him. It would have been a colossal gamble to entrust Martindale — a career coordinator on the other side of the ball who turns 60 in May — to do that (and to build a staff to do that). But hopefully he was able to get a raise out of interviewing twice.
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Anyway, we’re interested to see what Martindale does with the Giants’ defense in 2023. At the risk of being called negative, we think there should be real concern about regression. Martindale did a lot with a little last season, but it was not an elite unit. Common sense tells us heavy blitzing and success in areas like third down defense is not always sustainable. And there are a lot of personnel holes still to fill — and doing so may be tough if general manager Joe Schoen goes for broke retaining Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones.
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James Kratch can be reached at james.kratch@xlmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.
