Wink Martindale implores Giants fans to turn up the volume Sunday
New York Giants fans react for tee shirts during Fan Fest at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Friday, August 5, 2022. Credit: Noah K. Murray
It’s been a while since MetLife Stadium gave the Giants a home-field advantage.
That’s one of the many things the new regime would like to fix.
“This is one of the biggest changes you’ll see is this week to bring back great defense in this facility,” defensive coordinator Wink Martindale promised on Thursday. “I have only lived here a short period of time but I know New Yorkers are loud. We need to be loud in that stadium. They have to go on silent count. You want to be part of changing this culture here with the Giants? Be loud. Have that place rocking so people don’t want to come to our stadium. We’ll take care of the rest and we’ll give you something to be loud about.”
Sunday will be the Giants’ home opener against the Panthers. It comes one week after the rousing road victory over the Titans that excited the fan base and will mark the regular-season New Jersey debut of coach Brian Daboll & Co.
They are, though, playing in a stadium where the Giants have had a losing record in each of their past five seasons and are 12-28 over that time. It is a building that has more often heard the thunderous cheers of fans for opposing teams than the Giants themselves in recent seasons. And it is a crowd that has grown weary of uninspired football and has regularly turned on the team with boos at the earliest sign of further incompetence.
Martindale hopes to overcome all of that Sunday.
“I know this place loves defense,” he said of the market. “We’ll do our part, you guys do yours and it will be fun. It should be when you come to this stadium . . . I can’t wait to see it.”
Or, more to the point, hear it.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
