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Wink Martindale’s aggressive “pressure breaks pipes” defensive philosophy has been challenging and annoying the developing New York Giants offense for weeks now. Apparently, Thursday night the Giants’ defensive coordinator got under the skin of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, as well.
Martindale and the Giants blitzed New England quarterback Bailey Zappe on 17 of 33 snaps, and blitzed 21 times overall on 59 New England plays (35.6 percent).
That is far more than Belichick and the Patriots are used to dealing with in the preseason.
Blitzes Patriots QBs faced in Week 1 of the preseason, per @PFF:
— Zack Cox (@ZackCoxNESN) August 12, 2022
2017: 6
2018: 9
2019: 8
2021: 5
2022: 21 https://t.co/YudlF6Qkh0
“Well, with what the Giants were doing, there’s a lot of reasons for some of the things that we did just to try to manage the game,” Belichick said. “So, just leave it at that.”
The Giants ended up with just one sack and four hits on Zappe and Brian Hoyer, the New England quarterbacks.
Still, having to deal with so much pressure in the first week of preseason apparently bugged Belichick. I’m sure he isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, coach to be annoyed by Martindale.
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