Wink Martindale stopped just short of distributing pens, paper and other charting supplies as part of the challenge that he issued to critics.
After delivering a confidence-boosting message in private Friday morning to his players, the Giants’ defensive coordinator addressed the band of detractors that arose after 16 missed tackles against the 49ers contributed to an eye-popping 201 yards allowed after the catch.
“All of the sudden there is a wildfire that we can’t tackle,” Martindale said. “Come out Monday night. Chart them.”
Martindale was talking into cameras and tape recorders before practice, but he might as well have been talking to the locker room again.
The message was clear: He expects fewer missed tackles — fewer mistakes, in general — against the Seahawks.
“Clearly, we’ve been missing a lot of tackles, which is not OK,” defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence told The Post. “I think there’s like an inner-challenge between the players. Knowing what we have to do to get guys to the ground — first guy wrap him up, second guy try to get the ball. It’s a key point for players, and the coaches just monitor it.”
Martindale has been here before.
He told the Giants about his experience as Ravens defensive coordinator in the 2019 season, when “the world was coming to an end” after the Browns racked up a 12-year high of 530 yards of offense during a victory that dropped Baltimore to 2-2.
“We went and ran off [12] straight [wins],” Martindale said. “Not saying that’s going to happen, but I’m just saying to the players, ‘We control the narrative of our careers, of life and everything else individually.’”
It was a softer approach from Martindale than might be expected with the defense allowing 48.7 percent of third downs to be converted, generating the third-fewest quarterback pressures (16) in the league and creating just two sacks and zero takeaways.
The Giants are surrendering 28.3 points (up about a touchdown from last season) and 361.7 yards per game.
One problem that has carried over from last season is the Giants are susceptible to receiver screens when blitzing on third-and-longs and leaving defenders in one-on-one tackling spots.
“The challenge is within us,” safety Jason Pinnock told The Post. “Obviously, [tackling] is an emphasis. That’s the end-all be-all. Everybody wants to tackle great.”
The Giants dedicated practice time to breaking down stiff arms, running ball-carriers out of bounds, running through a ball-carrier and gator-rolling off of quarterbacks to avoid roughing the passer penalties like Leonard Williams received.
“I’m just not one of those guys that continually screams on game day or during practice because I think you can go up and just tell somebody,” Martindale said. “Sometimes that hurts more, when you are calm and you tell somebody what they need to do, you know? You are not going to see me explode on the sidelines. Hope not. If it is, there is something f–king really wrong.”
The Giants are not at that stage … yet.
Players still were rehashing Martindale’s message in small groups in the locker room after practice.
“We were just talking about there’s no other sport where you have fans and everybody for a whole week [acting] like that week is the end of the world,” Pinnock said. “We can go 12-0, too. Who knows? If you start to lose that [perspective], it’s through. Then you are going to start tanking and it’s going to be a snowball effect into straight negativity.”
Players rallied around Martindale’s aggressive play-calling and position-less schemes during the good times last season.
How are they responding to his methods during a test of adversity?
“He has earned a lot of respect from guys in the room,” Lawrence said, pointing to Martindale’s resume, “so we want to listen to a guy like that, play for him and trust what he is saying.”
And what is that message?
“Obviously, we are not there yet, but we are on our way,” Martindale said. “The biggest thing for me is I love a challenge. I don’t think you should be in this profession if you don’t, so we run to challenges. And we’ve got a challenge. I know what the challenge is, I’ve been here before, and we’ll go attack it.”
