The New England Patriots didn’t seem to appreciate how frequently the New York Giants blitzed during last Thursday’s preseason opener at Gillette Stadium.
Wink Martindale didn’t seem to care.
Martindale is the Giants’ defensive coordinator, and he’s known for his love of blitzing, dialing up more aggressive and exotic pressure packages than almost any other NFL DC. He sent plenty of those at Patriots rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe last week, causing some consternation from Bill Belichick.
New York reporters asked Martindale on Thursday about his blitz-happy approach. He responded with one of Belichick’s most famous one-liners.
“We’re on to Cincinnati,” Martindale cracked, via Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News.
The Giants play the Bengals this Sunday in their second exhibition game.
Teams rarely blitz with much frequency in Week 1 of the preseason, typically sticking to more vanilla schemes as players ease their way into live-contact football. In the Patriots’ previous four preseason openers, their quarterbacks faced six, nine, eight and five blitzes, according to Pro Football Focus.
The Giants sent an extra pass rusher 21 times, including on 17 of Zappe’s 33 dropbacks. That prompted the Patriots to remove almost all play-action from their game plan and may have influenced their decision to sit starting quarterback Mac Jones.
“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 in a day-after news conference. “So, just leave it at that.”
Zappe handled that pressure reasonably well in his first taste of NFL action, going 12-for-16 for 135 yards and a touchdown with one interception when blitzed, per PFF. Overall, the Western Kentucky product went 19-for-32 for 205 yards with one score and one pick after taking over from Brian Hoyer early in the second quarter.
The Patriots will continue their preseason Friday night against the Carolina Panthers at Gillette Stadium.
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