New York Giants’ play-calling may be a collaborative process in 2024

The ongoing saga of who will call the offensive plays for the New York Giants this season rolls on as the team heads into training camp in six weeks.

On Wednesday at minicamp, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka intimated that he was fine with whatever direction head coach Brian Daboll wants to go.

“I think Dabes hasn’t really made a final call on that yet,” Kafka said of the play-calling duties. “We are going through the spring right now. It’s kind of too early to tell. Whatever decision he goes with, I fully support.”

Daboll responded afterward in his media session by calling Kafka “a good teammate” but it appears as if he wants to control the process.

“Mike is a good teammate. Provides a lot of the value, has a lot of good insight,” Daboll said. “It’s been a really good collaborative process of ideas and it’s a good time now to go ahead and look at things and see how they do.”

After an offseason that saw Daboll win an internal power struggle that led to the dismissal of two other coordinators (Wink Martindale, Thomas McGaughey), Kafka is the last lieutenant standing.

Kafka could have been gone, too, as he was on the open market himself. He did not land another position in the annual coaching carousel and returned to the Giants. He appears to be a bit marginalized this spring even after being elevated to assistant head coach by Daboll.

“I’m just complementary to Dabes, helping out with offensive drills,” he said. “You’ll see me walking around and being an asset to the coaches and the players wherever I can. Whether it’s fundamentals, technique, whether it’s thoughts and ideas on routes or protections, stuff like that.

“Every year brings new opportunities, and so I’m taking this as an opportunity just to continue to grow as a coach and be, again, an asset to those coaches and players.”

Asked how he might compliment Daboll, Kafka had little to add.

“There is a lot of things on a given play you can look at and detail up. I’m always looking to have some feedback with the players, get their interactions on how they saw the play, and then give my feedback,” Kafka said. “Then we talk about it on the field and we talk about it in the meeting room and get those things cleaned up.”

Calling plays in the NFL is usually a function of the offensive coordinator but since Daboll was once one of the league’s best a few years back, he’s been reluctant to hand over the reins full-time to another coach.

“I’m not worried about that kind of stuff right now. We’re in the spring and we have so much stuff that we have to improve as an offense fundamentally, technique-wise. That’s really where my focus is at,” Kafka said.

Kafka said nothing has really changed since he’s gotten here in 2022. He and Daboll both work on the gameplan and either could call the plays come game day.

“It’s collaborative. From Day 1 it’s been that way,” he said.