Giants coordinator Wink Martindale: 'We need playoff fans to show up for this game'

With the Giants’ path to the playoffs now crystal-clear — win and they’re in; no help needed — defensive coordinator Wink Martindale stepped in front of the media at the Quest Diagnostics Center on Thursday and delivered a soliloquy on playoff football.

“Here’s what we need: We need playoff fans to show up for this game and be as loud as they can be,” he said. “I know [the game is on] New Year’s Day, so if you have one going on on New Year’s Eve, keep it going. And take it all the way through the game.

“If not, get plenty of rest and be ready to be loud on Sunday. I can’t wait for it. It’s going to be exciting times here for our great fans and for our guys on defense.”

And so began Thursday’s look into Martindale’s football soul.

He is brash, unafraid and popular among the players he coaches. Apparently, he also is comfortable leading the hype train for Sunday afternoon’s game against the Colts at MetLife Stadium.

And he was just getting warmed up.

The last question of the news conference was about what went through his mind when he saw Colts quarterback Nick Foles sacked seven times by the Chargers on Monday night.

“What’s going through my mind is that, at that time, that’s the first game he’s played in a while,’’ he said. “So it’s going to do nothing but get better for him, seeing things, going at a faster pace of it.

“But there’s definitely blood in the water.”

That’s vintage Martindale, and his players seem to love it.

“He’s just a good guy,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “There’s no tension, you can say what you want to say. You can laugh with him. A lot of times, you can’t do that with coaches. It’s unique to be able to be as comfortable as you can be with him.”

Rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux has noticed. “Personally, I would say he does a great job being a coach,” he said. “Wink is an all-star coach in terms of his scheme, connecting with the players, all-around. But I think it’s the way he puts people in position. It’s about what he sees in that player and the confidence he instills in the player.

“A guy like me, he not only saw my skill set, he saw my mind. Like, ‘OK, I see what I have in this kid. I’m going to push him, I’m going to put him in challenging situations to help maximize his potential.’ So for me, you could do nothing but respect that. At first, I’m sitting there like, this is so hard, they’re asking me to do so much. But as I got better at it, you see why I’m in this position.”

You see the vision?

“I see the vision,” he said.

For a veteran like Landon Collins — and for Giants fans who remember Collins’ first go-round with the Giants, this answer will not come as a surprise — Collins said it is Martindale’s “aggressiveness” that he most appreciates.

“Defensive players like to be aggressive, and he’s not passive,” Collins said. “It’s also his transparency and his honesty to keep us on point. He’s a jokester, he has stories. He’s a coach that people can just love because of how he is. He’s not one of those uptight coaches. You don’t feel like he’s hiding anything. He’s a person you can go up to, talk to and find out what’s going on.”

Martindale’s stories are funny?

“Yeah,” Collins said. “I can’t tell you any, though.”

And as he walked away, Collins laughed all the way to his locker.

By Kimberly Jones

kimberly.jones@newsday.comkimjonessports

Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.