The New York Giants’ head coaching job might be the hottest on the market this coming offseason.
Could the Giants fill it in-house?
Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka has assumed interim head coaching duties, and Yahoo Sports’ Nate Tice and Matt Harmon discussed the possibility of Kafka staying on permanently on Tuesday’s episode of “Football 301.”
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“Kafka’s gotten a lot of love, and it’s been consistent for a while now,” Tice said. “A lot of people that have been around him, have talked to him— I have never spoken to him, but people that have have always spoke very highly of him as a smart football mind.”
The Giants have their franchise quarterback in rookie Jaxson Dart in place, and his development from here on out will be crucial.
Harmon noted that Daboll came to the Giants in 2022 from the Buffalo Bills, one of the NFL’s annual Super Bowl contenders thanks to its top quarterback. Kafka, meanwhile, came from another situation like that.
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“Mike Kafka’s a guy who came from a completely different school of thought than Brian Daboll. He came from the Chiefs’ world, where Daboll came from Buffalo,” Harmon said. “They did not come in attached at the hip, and Mike Kafka called the plays in 2022 when this team was probably the best it was on offense, so I think there’s a real shot for him as the interim coach to actually keep this job if they continue to show some signs of promise and they don’t want to shake things up for Dart at the end of the year.”
Whereas Daboll has repeatedly demonstrated a tendency to weave his quarterbacks’ physicality into the offense, from Josh Allen to Daniel Jones to now Dart, Kafka might have a different philosophy.
Tice also noted that the Giants are a “sentimental” and “old-school” organization at the very top, and they like to make sure their star quarterbacks are taken care of. That might be some version of what John Mara and company ask candidates in the interview process.
“How much do you like our guy? How much do you like Jaxson Dart?” Tice said. “And if Kafka just goes, ‘Yeah, I like him,’ well that’s great.”
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Another element to all this: the fact that general manager Joe Schoen still has his job in New York, and will at least lead the head coaching search.
Harmon isn’t sold on that decision, but he notes that some candidates might be turned off by how much is already in place in New York — which could boost Kafka’s case.
“There is a general vibe of patience,” Harmon said. “That’s good, but you’ve got an inherited quarterback, you’ve got an inherited general manager. There will be better opportunities where [head coaching candidates] can just blank slate, so that’s a part of it.”
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Neither Tice nor Harmon are sold on Dart just yet as a franchise quarterback, but he’s shown some promise. Both also agree Dart needs to be kept more out of harm’s way, with less designed runs and usage in short yardage situations.
“I’m just not really ready to make any bold proclamations about where a quarterback is after a small handful of [games], good or bad,” Harmon said. “I am generally positive and have been impressed, more impressed than I expected to be with Jaxson Dart as a rookie.
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