New York Giants: Head Coach Short List Grows
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2. Don “Wink” Martindale
In second place, we have Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator, Wink Martindale. Martindale has done an incredible job with the Ravens in his two years as their defensive coordinator. He is a large reason why Baltimore has won the AFC North in back-to-back years and also holds the one-seed heading into the 2019-20 playoffs.
Martindale’s Baltimore defense is ranked third in the NFL in terms of points per game allowed, yielding a paltry 17.6 points per game in 2019. They were second in 2018, letting up an average of 18.2 points per game.
Martindale is a fantastic candidate for Big Blue because of the Giants horrible defense. The G-Men finished the 2019 season as the league’s third-worst scoring defense, giving up an average of 28.2 points per game. Unbelievably that was worse than the 25.8 points they let up in 2018 when they were ranked 23rd in the NFL.
The Giants need someone who could help out the defense in a large way and Martindale could be that guy.
Here is Martindale’s coaching resume:
- Notre Dame: 1994-95 assistant
- Cincinnati: 1996-98 special teams/linebackers coach
- Western Illinois: 1999 defensive coordinator/linebackers coach
- Western Kentucky: 2000-03 defensive coordinator/inside linebackers coach
- Oakland Raiders: 2004-08 linebackers coach
- Denver Broncos: 2009 linebackers coach
- Denver Broncos: 2010 defensive coordinator
- Baltimore Ravens: 2012-17 linebackers coach (Super Bowl XLVII Champion)
- Baltimore Ravens: 2018-present defensive coordinator
As you can see, Martindale has quite the resume and it seems as if the only coaching position he hasn’t held is head coach, but based on what he has done with the Ravens’ defense over the past two seasons, there is no reason to believe he wouldn’t succeed in that role as well.
At this moment, the New York Giants appear to be the only team that has requested to interview Martindale, but with the Cowboys moving on from Jason Garrett and some other teams starting to request interviews, that will likely change very soon.