{"id":82197,"date":"2020-03-17T01:02:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T05:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=82197"},"modified":"2020-03-17T01:02:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T05:02:37","slug":"blake-martinez-signs-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/03\/17\/blake-martinez-signs-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Martinez Signs With New York Giants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MartBl01.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Blake Martinez<\/strong><\/a> signed a three-year, $30 million contract with the New York Giants. Martinez, a Stanford product, spent the 2019 season with the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/packers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Green Bay Packers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Giants?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Giants<\/a> have agreed to terms with LB Blake Martinez, source says<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeGarafolo\/status\/1239768610857500672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 17, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Blake Martinez and New York Giants Agree to Deal<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Marinez was drafted #131 overall by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/gnb\/2019.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Green Bay Packers<\/a> in 2016 out of Stanford. While in college, Martinez started for two years as a linebacker for the Cardinal. In 2015, he was named <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blake_Martinez\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">First-Team All-Pac-12 Team<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He signed a four-year contract with the Packers that was worth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/nfl\/green-bay-packers\/blake-martinez-19085\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$2,723,393.<\/a> In his tenure with Green Bay, the 26-year-old linebacker played <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MartBl01.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">61 games<\/a> in which he had three interceptions, 10 sacks, and 512 combined tackles.<\/p>\n<p>Last off-season, Green Bay made a huge splash in free agency to improve their defense. While the defense made strides in 2019, there is still room to grow. Packers general manager, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/executives\/GuteBr0.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brian Gutekunst<\/strong><\/a>, expressed a desire to get younger and faster on defense. In regards to Martinez, the general manager said, &#8220;Obviously, Blake Martinez is up, and I think we&#8217;re going have to take a long look at the inside linebacker thing, make sure we&#8217;re <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/blog\/green-bay-packers\/post\/_\/id\/48613\/packers-free-agent-questions-blake-martinez-gone-bryan-bulaga-back\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">squared away<\/a> there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Although Martinez set a franchise record with 203 tackles in 2019, he only had three sacks, one interception, and one forced fumble. Even though he leads the team in tackles, he doesn\u2019t make the huge impact that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/S\/SmitPr00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Preston Smith<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/S\/SmitZa00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Za\u2019Darius Smith<\/a><\/strong> make on the field. In the 2019 season alone, Preston and Za&#8217;Darius (known as the &#8220;Smith Brothers&#8221;) racked up a combined 25.5 sacks.<\/p>\n<p>Following the Packers loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/sfo\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco 49ers<\/a>, Martinez gave a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.12up.com\/posts\/packers-blake-martinez-gives-emotional-postgame-interview-after-potential-last-game-with-green-bay-video-01dz0jvd4b17\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tearful interview<\/a>. He expressed how much he has loved playing in Green Bay and wants to come back. Despite his impressive stats, Martinez doesn\u2019t contribute like the team needs. The linebacker seems to focus all of his energy on tackles, leaving the rest of his stats lacking.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"k7wtiJfOSP96BUzm0AHuHQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1190764509\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:&#8217;k7wtiJfOSP96BUzm0AHuHQ&#8217;,sig:&#8217;qo0U9jq7GgUcbEc9aOL_mvzGaDZalDtPIu32RGj0-VQ=&#8217;,w:&#8217;594px&#8217;,h:&#8217;372px&#8217;,items:&#8217;1190764509&#8242;,caption: true ,tld:&#8217;com&#8217;,is360: false })});<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NFL linebacker Blake Martinez is no longer a free agent. The Stanford product spent the 2019 season with the Green Bay Packers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2831,"featured_media":82464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,36],"tags":[5168,1132,61,44,40,246],"class_list":["post-82197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-packers","category-nfl-news","tag-2020-nfl-free-agency","tag-blake-martinez","tag-football","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-news"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}