The only thing left for the New York Giants to do this season is to find what proverbial strands of spaghetti stick to the wall after throwing the plate at it.
Mike Kafka is preparing for his third game as interim head coach on Monday night in Foxboro against the New England Patriots (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN). He fired defensive coordinator Shane Bowen after five separate fourth-quarter collapses this last week and elevated outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen to the vacant position.
While the hope is that he can devise a full, 60-minute game plan, Big Blue’s offense is getting its face back with rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart back in the fold.
After missing the last two games with a concussion, which also sparked controversy within the building due to the previous coaching staff’s apparent lack of accountability, Dart will return under center on Monday night to relieve Jameis Winston after a pair of admirable performances that ultimately fell short.
“I’m ready,” Dart said earlier in the week. “I’ve been waiting for it. These primetime games are ones that you have circled on your calendar. So I’m excited to go out there, go compete at a high level and do everything in my power to rally these guys, to put our team in the best situation when the clock hits zero that we’re going to come out with a win.”
This will be the 22-year-old’s first opportunity to play in the more aggressive offensive scheme that came with Kafka’s promotion to interim head coach. In their Week 12 overtime loss to the Detroit Lions, Winston threw for 344 yards — 156 of them coming to Wan’Dale Robinson on nine connections with a touchdown.
How Dart will approach using his legs will be put under the microscope. At times, he is too aggressive, which in part led to him suffering that concussion in Week 10 in Chicago against the Bears. But Kafka has implored that the organization is working with him to balance picking up extra yards with self-preservation.
Regardless, the Giants are a better team with their new franchise quarterback. They have averaged just over 24 points per game since he took over from Russell Wilson, and he has accounted for 17 total touchdowns in seven starts.
A Bull-ish new defense?
Moving on from Bowen was inevitable. During the Giants’ six-game losing streak, the defense was allowing 31.7 points per game and found a way seemingly every week to torpedo things in the fourth quarter.
In comes Bullen, who will be serving as a defensive coordinator at the NFL level for the first time in his 12-year career in the pros.
He certainly has the talent on defense to improve things from where Bowen had them. Brian Burns leads the NFC with 13 sacks, leading a shorthanded edge-rushing trio of Kayvon Thibodeaux, who will miss Monday night with a shoulder injury, and sputtering rookie Abdul Carter.
Dexter Lawrence, one of the best nose tackles in all of football, is going to fight through an elbow injury that forced him to miss two practices mid-week before limited participation on Saturday.
To maximize what this defense offers, Bullen knows his job is to create advantageous matchups.
“From my perspective, coming from my position room where there’s three first-rounders, I understand fully that it’s a talent-driven league and a player-driven league,” he said. “My philosophy is always players over plays, and how can we as coaches, even as a position coach, maximize our players’ abilities and put them in position to have success…
“I’d say at this point, it’s hard to wholesale change. Not that I’d do that anyway, but we’ve got years and months of time on task in this scheme. So I don’t think it’s something you can change completely. I think we can tweak and alter, but as best I can, I just want to put these guys in position to succeed so that their skill sets are maximized, and they can play as fast as possible.”
