Patrick Graham has officially left his “Dream Job” as The New York Football Giants Defensive Coordinator. I must say – although I am sad to see Graham go, I do believe it is best for both parties. The Giants look to hit the reset button on this team an look to go into free agency with 40million dollars of cap to play with. That will lead to tough decisions to be made on the defensive side of the ball with the possibility of cutting Blake Martinez, James Bradberry, or both. So Graham leaving a team with little talent that could very well get rid of some more of that talent is totally understandable. He goes to Las Vegas who are looking to have turned things around as far as talent goes. He will have some of the top talent in the league with a defense led by Max Crosby.
So how does this make sense for The Giants? I already said I am upset to see him go, I like having no ties to any players on the team and having a clean slate on all three sides of the football moving forward. This may make decisions on some players easier, I would assume the odds Lorenzo Carter is a New York Giant next year has drastically decreased. Patrick Grahams lack of aggression was something that was getting a ton of heat by some fans. I don’t believe you can blame that on Graham as he had very little talent to work with. I do believe this was for the best.
As Talkin Giants insider, Justin Penik, broke on Twitter at 10:25PM on Friday Night – The Giants had an interview with Wink Martindale the day after Graham made his decision. Ian Rapoport got all the credit for that for some weird reason, who sent out his tweet over 12 hours later – not sure why. Maybe because Justin chose to leave the interview of Sean Desai out to keep everyone on their toes. Anyway, The Giants have already had interviews with Sean Desai and Wink Martindale over the weekend and plan to speak with “4 or so” more. Great reporting Rapoport. He’s lucky Justin is an Entertainer First – Producer Second – Insider Third.
(This was a joke. I do not know Justin or Rapoport.)
Okay, now back to being serious. The Giants are actually bringing in Wink and Desai who are fantastic candidates. Wink is the clear favorite from the fan base at the moment. I personally would prefer him over Desai, but I want to wait to hear who the other candidates are before I make an official ranking system. Wink Martindale LOVES sending the blitz, blitzing 55% of Baltimores snaps. This would be a tremendous help to our absolute embarrassment of a pass rush. It is also important to point out that Winks defenses when healthy were top 10 in the NFL, but when injured were near bottom of the league. He relies on good man coverage on the back end from the secondary for those blitzes to get home. He also loves the third and long cover 0. This is a recipe that I would be afraid of in New York; combining how outraged the fans already are after watching the last decade of embarrassing football and how hard it already is to succeed with the media – Wink could be on the hot seat by week 8. With that being said, there is a ton of potential in that secondary room and it would be interesting to see what he could get out of the guys there.
The other candidate is Sean Desai and really, I don’t have an opinion of him. He has spent his entire NFL career with The Bears, and was the defensive coordinator there last year. I think he would be a good option as a position coach as he was the safties coach in Chicago from 2013-1018. That’s really my thought there.
My Number 1 option is Vic Fangio. He has one of the best defensive minds in the game and has consistently been around some of the top defenses in football. In fact, he was the defensive coordinator in Chicago while Desai was the Safties coach. Fangio has done an incredible job adjusting to the pass-first offenses and how NFL offenses have changed. He molds his defensive scheme to fit the players on the field. His first defensive coordinator job was in Carolina in the year 1995. his most recent jobs were as the defensive coordinator under Jim Harbough in San Franciso, which was one of the best defenses in football from 2011-2014. He than went to Chicago from 2015-2018, which it is not a secret that team was only relevant because of how dominant those defenses were. He than became the Head Coach in Denver with a roster that has only regressed with him and I personally think he should’ve had another year.
Sorry. Did not mean to go on about Fangio like that, but he is my clear-cut number 1 option.
A Fan With A Mic 