Giants Name Offensive Coordinator Mike Kafka as the Play Caller

Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka was always trending toward being the offense's play caller, but on Monday, head coach Brian Daboll made it official.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Sep 5, 2022 12:14 PM EDT

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New York Giants

In perhaps the least surprising, yet noteworthy news to start the new week ahead of the 2022 regular-season, New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll has officially named offensive coordinator Mike Kafka as the team's play caller moving forward.

"I talked to Mike over the weekend--we were working yesterday--talked to him today," Daboll said. "I have a lot of confidence in Mike. We'll stay with how we did things in the preseason."

The news comes as no surprise for several reasons. First, Daboll had Kafka calling the plays as far back as the spring OTAs. That process continued into training camp and the preseason, with Daboll repeatedly praising Kafka for his communication with quarterback Daniel Jones.

Kafka, who worked from the press box, making him the first offensive play caller that Jones had in the NFL to take that route, is a former NFL quarterback who came to the team from the Kansas City Chiefs.

At the start of training camp, Daboll spoke glowingly of the job Kafka has done since joining the Giants this off-season.

"I've been really happy with Mike," Daboll said. "Not just his communication with the quarterback, but how he's handled the offensive staff, how he's handled the players. He has a really good demeanor about himself."

With this being a critical season for Jones, Kafka has been deploying lessons he learned while working for Chiefs head coach Andy Reid in his dealings with Jones, the biggest of which is collaboration and flexibility.

“I’m not big on putting guys in a box, so I like giving them some freedom, giving them some baseline guidelines to work within, and then letting those guys work it out, because at the end of the day, you know I’m staying on the sideline,” Kafka told The Athletic earlier this year.

“I’m in the press box or whatever it is, and those guys are the guys on the field. They gotta go play, so they got to make sure that they’re on the same page.”

Kafka is also a big fan of including an unexpected twist in the game plan that no one can claim they saw coming.

"One thing I learned from Coach Reid that he did a great job at was he always had enough explosives, enough stuff to take advantage of a defense and make them think about it — whether it was a formation, a shift, a motion, a play design,” Kafka told The Athletic. “There was always something that the defense definitely hadn’t seen in their breakdown that you know really would force the defense to communicate.”

By naming Kafka the play caller, Daboll is also filling a preference of general manager Joe Schoen, who, after Daboll was hired as the head coach, expressed his feelings on the matter regarding Daboll calling plays as he had done in Buffalo.

"I would prefer he manages the game. Ideally, the offensive coordinator calls the plays. But I’m not going to say that’s set in stone because we’re going to let Brian make that decision.”