Blake Martinez ready to build on strong campaign
Linebacker Blake Martinez was often called a "tackling machine" throughout his final three seasons in Green Bay. His 443 total tackles from 2017-2019 were the most in the NFL as he started all 48 regular season games during that span.
When the Giants signed Martinez to a multi-year deal last off-season, the team was hoping he would continue to serve as a consistent force in the middle. Fast forward nearly 10 months and the Giants couldn't be happier about the investment they made in the 27-year-old veteran.
Martinez started all 16 games this past season while barely leaving the field. He played on 97 percent of the team's defensive snaps, setting a career high with 1,062. The fifth-year pro finished the season with 151 total tackles (third in the NFL) to go with three sacks, nine tackles for losses, six quarterback hits, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, one interception and five passes defensed. His 75.9 overall grade from Pro Football Focus was the seventh-highest among linebackers.
Despite his strong production, Martinez expressed his excitement about getting to work this off-season in order to improve his game.
"Overall season-wise, extremely happy with how I played," Martinez said after the season ended. "Always obviously wanting to get better. I'm going to focus on just improving on all aspects of my game this off-season. To make 152 tackles and 'XYZ' more plays for my team to help us win. Then overall, just excited for this group of guys and excited to get back to work for the 2021 season."
Martinez has good reason to look forward to the Fall, as the Giants' defense put up strong numbers in its first year under defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.
The defense finished ninth in points allowed (22.3) and 12th in yards allowed (349.3), a significant improvement from its NFL rankings the previous season. The unit was most impressive in the red zone, surrendering a touchdown on just 50.8 percent of opponents' trips inside the 20, the second-best mark in the league.
Now that the defense has had a full season in Graham's system, Martinez believes it can play even better.
"I think with every team, especially with having a new defensive coordinator, you have those kinds of little bumps in the road and things like that," the linebacker said. "But I think overall throughout the year, he did a really good job of getting us to understand it, understand what he's looking for. But like you said, the jump from year one to year two, it's going to be awesome to kind of find finite details and just understand even more what he's looking for, and be able to play maybe one or two steps quicker across the board as a group."
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January 15, 2021 at 06:00PM
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