The Giants fired head coach Brian Daboll on Monday and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will take the reins for the remainder of the regular season.
Multiple reports say that Kafka will be named the interim head coach for the 2-8 club. It will be his first time in a head coaching role.
Kafka played quarterback at Northwestern and appeared in four games for the Eagles during the 2011 season. He remained active as a player through 2015 and joined Andy Reid’s staff in Kansas City in 2017. He spent four seasons as the Chiefs’ quarterbacks coach before joining Daboll’s staff in 2022.
Kafka has interviewed for multiple head coaching vacancies in recent years and will now get a seven-game run to try to convince the Giants or another team that he should get a top job on a permanent basis.
Brian Daboll’s tenure as the head coach of the New York Giants has come to an end.
Daboll was fired today, one day after a loss to the Bears that was the latest in the Giants’ string of blown leads this season.
The Giants are 2-8 this season and 20-40-1 in Daboll’s three and a half seasons as head coach. Daboll also went 1-1 in the playoffs after his first season at the helm of the Giants in 2022, a surprisingly successful debut that got Daboll plenty of credit. But the Giants never again were playoff contenders with Daboll as their head coach.
This season was marred by injuries, including a concussion suffered by the Giants’ promising rookie quarterback, Jaxson Dart, during Sunday’s loss. Giants ownership may have decided that firing Daboll now is the best way to help Dart develop, hopefully under an interim head coach who will do a better job of protecting him.
That interim head coach has not yet been named. But Daboll is done.
It’s time.
It’s Jameis Winston time.
If starter Jaxson Dart isn’t cleared to return from a concussion he suffered on Sunday in a loss to the Bears, Jameis Winston should get the start in Week 11 against the Packers.
With all due respect to Russell Wilson, the Giants need a spark. They need hope. And, if all else fails, they need some fun.
Wilson brings none of those at this point in his career. And coach Brian Daboll doesn’t trust Wilson. In the Thursday night win over the Eagles, Daboll sparked a mess for the team (and himself) by entering the blue tent while Dart was being evaluated for a concussion. Daboll later explained that he wanted to know whether Dart would be available for an upcoming fourth-down play.
The message was that, if Dart was cleared, Daboll would go for it. And that, if Dart wasn’t, Daboll wouldn’t go for it with Wilson.
On Sunday, the Giants had a fourth and goal from the Chicago one, up 17-10 in the fourth quarter. Once again, Daboll didn’t trust Wilson to gain one yard on a gotta-have-it play.
Why not Winston at this point? While it may not be sustainable, it doesn’t have to be. He can let it fly and inject some life into a lost season. And maybe he could help win a game or two.
Those wins could save a job or two, starting with Daboll’s.
So, yes. It’s time. It’s Jameis time.
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has shown a knack for dramatic finishes in his second NFL season.
Four of the team’s six wins have come via game-winning drives in the fourth quarter, including Sunday’s 24-20 win over the Giants. The Bears trailed 20-10 after a Younghoe Koo field goal in the fourth quarter, but Williams led a pair of touchdown drives to make the team a winner for the sixth time in their last seven games.
Williams’ ability to make plays with his feet loomed large on both drives. Williams had a 29-yard scramble to set up a touchdown pass to Rome Odunze and he scored the game-winner on a 17-yard run on the next possession. Williams ran for 52 yards in the fourth quarter and head coach Ben Johnson compared the quarterback to a famous escape artist in his postgame press conference.
“He looks like a Houdini back there in the backfield, because that’s a really good pass-rushing front,” Johnson said. “They’ve given a lot of teams fits. I think [Brian] Burns is leading the NFL in sacks. There were times where he’s trying to escape and making some things happen. He had a couple throws down the field, but over 50 yards again rushing for the second week in a row, and I thought in the fourth quarter there we really needed that as a shot in the arm to end up winning that ballgame. So, credit to him.”
Both Williams and Johnson said they’d like to see the team avoid the need for so many late-game heroics, but the confidence that comes with knowing that games aren’t over even if you’re trailing in the fourth quarter should serve the Bears well as they try to find their way into the playoffs come January.
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart wasn’t around to try to stop his team from another late game meltdown on Sunday because he was ruled out of the game with a concussion in the fourth quarter.
That left Russell Wilson to run the offense as the Giants went from being up 17-10 to losing 24-20 in Chicago. Dart was not immediately taken out of the game and head coach Brian Daboll said at his postgame press conference that the quarterback “just didn’t seem right” when he was going back onto the field after the break between the third and fourth quarters.
Dart looked like he was shaken up when he lost a fumble earlier in the third quarter, but Daboll said he didn’t “know the exact play that it happened.” Dart has been checked for concussions in multiple games this season and Daboll was asked whether the quarterback’s playing style leads to him taking too many hits.
“Yeah. I just say it’s unfortunate he got hurt,” Daboll said, via a transcript from the team.
Daboll declined to say whether Wilson or Jameis Winston will start against the Packers next week if Dart is not cleared to return and it will be a few days before there’s any idea of how Dart is progressing through the concussion protocol.
