Mike Kafka Opens Up About Return to NY Giants Playcalling Duties

The cat is officially out of the bag as far as the New York Giants' playcaller for the upcoming season goes.

Head coach Brian Daboll finally confirmed what has been the worst-kept secret of the year so far: assistant head coach/offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, who has been calling the plays on offense dating back to the spring practices, will be calling plays this season. 

“Mike's done a great job this preseason. He's done a good job with the staff. Got a lot of confidence in Mike and the offensive staff,” Daboll said this week. 

“Up to this point, relative to all the preseason games and the meetings we've had, I've been very pleased with the offensive staff.”

For Kafka, the transition back to playcalling after being removed from that duty last year in favor of Daboll should be a relatively smooth one because, although he didn’t call plays last year, he was still a key part of the game planning process.

“It's just about getting with the players, giving them the stuff that they like, and then just going through evaluation,” he said Thursday. 

“The preseason is obviously a bigger evaluation tool, but it's just getting back into the flow of it. We've been doing it throughout training camp and throughout the spring. Just making those reps has been good.”

Unlike his first two seasons, in which he was up in the quieter surroundings of the press box, Kafka will be stationed on the field this season, which is where he was all preseason. 

“It was good to be on the sideline. It's always fun to be right there with the players and see it eye-to-eye and communicate with them more directly,” he said. 

“You can do certain elements of that up in the box, but there's really no substitute for being on the field. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I think guys obviously operate in a bunch of different ways. So I thought it was cool.”

A benefit of being on the field is that Kafka can now visit with each position group or a specific player in between series, something he previously couldn’t do as readily.