The situation involving Wink Martindale and the Brian Daboll has gotten really bad.
During his final press conference of the season with the media, Giants head coach Brian Daboll told reporters he expected defensive coordinator Wink Martindale to return to the team in 2024.
A few hours later, it got leaked to the media that the Martindale had resigned from his position as the Giants defensive coordinator. The only problem was that neither Brian Daboll nor anyone from the Giants organization had heard from Wink until a picture surfaced online Tuesday showing Martindale at the airport allegedly flying out of New Jersey and back to Florida, where he has a home.
A few hours later, a report surfaced from Paul Schwartz of the New York Post outlining the situation and it’s pretty bad. According to the NYPost, Martindale “stormed out” of the Giants facility, “cursing out” head coach Brian Daboll after he was told that the Giants were firing OLB Drew Wilkins, who was a close confidant of Martindale.
Daboll told Martindale he wanted him to stay but that he was going to fire the Wilkins brothers. On the sideline, it is Drew Wilkins helping Martindale with the personnel groupings and directing traffic for him.
Drew Wilkins helps Martindale devise the defensive schemes. Martindale, angered by this news, cursed out Daboll, said his piece, got up, slammed the door and walked out of the building. He notified those close to him he planned to resign. More than 24 hours later, the Giants still had not heard anything from Martindale.
Wilkins was believed relived after Daboll felt that Martindale and Drew Wilkins were “creating their own fiefdom within the coaching staff, bypassing Daboll and believing they only had to answer to each other and ownership.”
There was also a report from Fox Sports Jay Glazer that surfaced back in November saying that Wink Martindale and Brian Daboll had “tension” and that the two were in a “bad place.” When confronted about the report, Daboll downplayed, joking that the only thing “him and Wink argue about is over the last slice of pizza.”
But Paul Schwartz reports that behind closed doors, it was Daboll that confronted the entire defensive coaching staff over the leak:
Daboll, publicly, dismissed that report and presented Martindale with the game ball after a 10-7 victory over the Patriots. Daboll privately confronted Martindale, twice, about the report and no explanation was given.
Daboll walked into a meeting of the defensive staff and, referring to the report, announced if anyone had a problem with him he should speak up. No one spoke up.
As of Tuesday evening, Wink Martindale had yet to turn in his resignation letters, a lot of people are speculating that Martindale is trying to get himself fired by the Giants so he can be free to sign else where while also collecting the $3 million owned to him on his contract. If he were to resign, he would not be able to get any of the remaining money on his contract and the Giants would own his rights if he were to seek other opportunities.
One thing is for certain, Martindale’s time with the Giants is over.
