Big Blue View
If Mike Kafka is going to earn the full-time — I won’t say “permament” because nothing is permanent in the NFL — he needs to win some games over the next seven weeks. More importantly, perhaps, he will need to show Giants’ ownership that he can lead a full team while setting standards and demonstrating that he can and will hold players to them.
Among the things that got Brian Daboll fired, an inability to hold players accountable was perhaps at the root of everything. The Giants have seemed like a say what you want, do what you want, play with whatever level of effort or non-effort you want without real consequences group for the last couple of years.
Kafka has seven games to make a dent in, or reverse, that impression entirely.
Fortunately, setting and maintaining expectations seems to be high on his priority list. In talking on Wednesday about what he believes makes a great head coach, this is part of what Kafka said:
“Accountability, holding guys accountable to the highest standard. If it’s not right, fix it, don’t wait and let things just kind of trickle and snowball. You want to be able to do that.”
On Friday, Kafka expanded on what that meant.
“I think you have a set standard on how you want to operate in the meeting rooms, on the field, as a pro and around the building, how you communicate with your players, and I think if it’s not up to standard, then you’ve got to show them the ‘why’ it’s not up to standard, how it can be changed, how it can be different, and if little things are not right, then you’ve got to go and fix it immediately,” Kafka said. “You don’t want to just leave that to chance. If you can identify it fast enough, you go in there and you get it fixed, and then you show them the ‘why’ this is going to make you a better football player, why do we do this? It’s not just talk. It’s not just anything. This is why we do these things. It’s because it helps us on Sunday. It helps us win games.”
Defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who is having a sub-par season, said this week that Kafka has been “throwing little jabs and little comments at the defensive line, just challenging the defense daily.”
Maybe that will help get Lawrence out of whatever funk he has been in.
From 2000-2024, 49 coaches were fired midseason, per Pro Football Rumors. Twelve of the interim head coaches who took over (24.5%) have been given the full-time job for the following season.
Overall, we will see over the next couple of months if Kafka, who projects a quiet but no-nonsense demeanor, has the chops to deliver on setting and enforcing some much-needed standards. If he can, that gives him a shot at becoming No. 13.
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