Big Blue View
The New York Giants are back to work after their late-season bye week, preapring to host the Washington Commanders this weekend. Interim head coach Mike Kafka kicked off the week by discussing his hopes for the end of the season, as well as other topics.
At 2-11, the season has not gone the way anyone hoped or envisioned it would. That is how Kafka ended up as the coach to begin with. His message to players over the final four weeks is to simply continue trying to get better.
“I think what the messaging has been is really just focusing on today, focusing on this week, not look ahead four weeks in the future, just focus on how we can improve,” Kafka said. “Regardless of the record, I mean, our focus and our vision is on Washington and how we can improve as a team, how we improve individually, and then as a group, and then as a team. So, again, our coordinators and our coaches have a really clear plan on how we want to do that, how we want to attack it. So now it’s about bringing that to life.
“I think as an NFL football player, you want to be able to maximize yourself, and that’s what our challenge is as coaching staff, is to continue to maximize our players. So, putting them in a good position, continuing to have an aggressive mindset, and then attacking this week with great urgency.”
Kafka said that during the bye week he “had some time to reflect and think about the first three weeks [of his tenure as interim head coach], think about kind of the future of it and what we wanted to get accomplished” over the final four weeks.
Kafka has been the team’s interim head coach for three games. He has fired defensive coordinator Shane Bowen and assistant defensive line coach, twice benched rookie edge defender Abdul Carter, and had to make a variety of other decisions for the first time in his coaching career.
“If there’s problems and there’s issues, then being able to be a problem solver and be an asset and clean those things up that I think need to get cleaned up. And then the things that are working really well, you build on that,” Kafka said. “I think there’s just a lot of opportunity for growth across the board with our players, with our coaches, with our staff, how we can continue to grow and get better. And having this bye week really opened my eyes to some of those areas as best I can and in the amount of time I have to do that.
“Because, again, I come to the office, there’s things you got to make sure you touch base with the players, the staff, but then also there’s a game planning part. We have a game we have to play and getting that stuff organized....
