It was only a matter of time before Mike Kafka was going to get a head-coaching gig at the NFL level.
The New York Giants’ head assistant and offensive coordinator was pursued by the Seattle Seahawks two offseasons ago, but the Big Blue denied their interview request. In the spring, he interviewed for the head-coaching jobs with the Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints.
At 38, the former quarterback is considered one of the up-and-coming football minds even while running the offense of a scuffling franchise that has gone 5-22 since the start of last season. Now, he’s got his first chance to prove that he can cut it as a head coach.
Kafka was named the Giants’ interim head coach on Monday after the team dismissed Brian Daboll after three-plus seasons and immediately started making moves.
While he will still call the offensive plays, he named Tim Kelly offensive coordinator. With Jaxson Dart in concussion protocol, he gave Jameis Winston the nod at QB1 for Sunday’s Week 11 clash with the Green Bay Packers rather than reverting back to Russell Wilson, who started the first three games of the season (the Giants went 0-3 before returning to Dart).
The decision to start Winston, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ starter, was solely Kafka’s.
“I think Jameis has done a great job since he’s been here,” Kafka said. “Just like all our quarterback room, I’ve got a lot of trust in that room, being in there all the time, pretty much every single day since we’ve been here. But I’ve got a good feel for those guys, and I think Jameis will do a heck of a job. He’s a great leader. He has a lot of production in this league, and I think he’s going to do a great job leading that group.”
The 2025 season is already lost for the 2-8 Giants, but hitting on early decisions like this will only help strengthen Kafka’s prospects of shedding the interim tag beyond the winter.
Kafka said that it isn’t his priority right now, though it’s in the back of everyone’s mind moving forward.
“Right now, my only focus really is on the players,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about them for the last 48 hours, and I’m sure not every single one of these guys have reacted the same way, so I’m really sensitive to that, and it would be selfish of me to think about anything else but the players. So, getting these guys on the same page, getting them a great plan with really decisive calls, a decisive game plan so they can go execute at a high level, that’s most important.”
