{"id":47415,"date":"2025-11-13T03:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T03:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47415\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T03:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T03:34:10","slug":"mike-kafka-names-tim-kelly-offensive-coordinator-giants-move-on-from-brian-daboll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47415\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Kafka names Tim Kelly offensive coordinator, Giants move on from Brian Daboll"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was not much sense of loss in the Giants<\/a>\u2018 locker room two days after Brian Daboll\u2019s firing.<\/p>\n

Mike Kafka has inherited a team<\/a> that could go a lot of different ways in these final seven weeks. The Giants (2-8) know their season is already over.<\/p>\n

Players will be motivated to put good football on tape for their next opportunity and to earn bonuses \u2014 and to get at least one win to show some pride.<\/p>\n

But outside of some prepared thank yous to Daboll from Jameis Winston and Kafka \u2014 and remorse from Brian Burns that it didn\u2019t work out \u2014 the Giants\u2019 players came off as anywhere from loose to indifferent to simply not broken up about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of the repercussions of not winning,\u201d wideout Darius Slayton said.<\/p>\n

Kafka handled his first press conference as the interim head coach well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the best head coaches I\u2019ve been around are guys that are confident, poised, have a direction, have a plan and then go execute the plan,\u201d Kafka said. \u201cYou have flexibility to adjust. Accountability \u2014 holding guys accountable to the highest standard. If it\u2019s not right, fix it, don\u2019t wait and let things just kind of trickle and snowball\u2026 Empower players to be their best.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also showed some fight by naming tight ends coach Tim Kelly his new offensive coordinator, passing over offensive passing game coordinator and QB coach Shea Tierney.<\/p>\n

Tierney, a Daboll loyalist, had been next in line under Daboll and called plays in the second half against Dallas in 2023 when Daboll took those responsibilities away from Kafka.<\/p>\n

Daboll actually gave Tierney a promotion coming off that 6-11 season while stripping Kafka of playcalling completely, taking it over himself and sidelining Kafka with an assistant head coach title as a consolation prize.<\/p>\n

That resulted in a 3-14 season. Daniel Jones, the quarterback Tierney was in charge of improving, was blamed and released. Now Jones is the starting QB of the 8-2, NFL best Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n

So Kafka put his stamp on who he is going to trust and empower most, while keeping offensive playcalling duties himself even as the head coach.<\/p>\n

Good for him.<\/p>\n

This entire coaching staff will be out at the end of this season anyway. But Kafka, who is auditioning now for the full-time job, is the potential exception.<\/p>\n

So this is his chance to do it his way.<\/p>\n

Winston, who thanked Daboll for welcoming him and his family to New York, said Kafka is \u201cvery poised on the sideline.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Slayton said the \u201cnaturally even-keeled\u201d former NFL quarterback now coaching the team \u201chas a fire in his gut.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn his heart, he\u2019s a player, and to play at this level, you have to have something about you,\u201d Slayton said. \u201cGuys are still positive, still encouraged. From an offensive perspective, he has our respect and appreciation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will still be a challenge to turn this into a winning football team.<\/p>\n

Even for one Sunday.<\/p>\n

Kafka does not have much of a relationship to the defensive side of the ball. Shane Bowen\u2019s unit is going to sink or swim with the same attempted adjustments that have led to constant collapses and a near total absence of complementary football.<\/p>\n

Come gameday, Kafka will have a chance to demonstrate a better understanding of the clock, game management and situational football than Daboll \u2014 that shouldn\u2019t be hard.<\/p>\n

But he also has to adjust his offense to a new quarterback in Winston<\/a>, which will mean running something completely different from what Jaxson Dart has deployed.<\/p>\n

And on top of that, the Giants are completely decimated by injuries on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n

All of that is to say that Kafka is doing his best and struck the right notes on Wednesday. He even was throwing passes to wide receivers early in practice, showing off that former NFL quarterback arm.<\/p>\n

Given the locker room\u2019s apathy, however, and the numerous factors changing at rapid speed around this team, it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess how the Giants players will respond on Sunday against the Packers.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Giants placed kicker Graham Gano on injured reserve on Wednesday due to the herniated disc in his back.<\/p>\n

His career with the team is probably over.<\/p>\n

Gano, 38, a former Pro Bowler, has had a solid NFL career.<\/p>\n

But a kicker injury and team mismanagement of the position has cost the Giants at least four games in the last three seasons with Gano at the center of it all.<\/p>\n

This was another overdue measure that is coming too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was not much sense of loss in the Giants\u2018 locker room two days after Brian Daboll\u2019s firing.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,27381,27379,27380],"class_list":{"0":"post-47415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-giants-brian-daboll","12":"tag-mike-kafka","13":"tag-tim-kelly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}