The New York Giants finally pulled the plug on the Brian Daboll era on Monday, marking the end of his three and a half year tenure as the organization's head coach. Daboll had gone an underwhelming 20-40-1 during that time and while he helped lead the Giants to the playoffs in his first year on the job, it was all downhill after that.
With Daboll's Giants tenure now officially in the books, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will be taking over as the interim head coach. Kafka joined the Giants in 2022 with Daboll and now he'll get his shot to show what he can do in the biggest leadership role on the coaching staff.
Mike Florio discussed this situation on Tuesday morning's edition of Pro Football Talk and hinted at how the Giants might have fired Daboll to get a better look at Kafka before other teams might try to poach him this offseason.
"I saw something yesterday where part of the justification is 'Well, you know they're concerned that, you know, they may let [Kafka] get out of the building, like Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi once did'. Well, I hope they're not comparing Mike Kafka to Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry first of all. But second of all, that's a s***ty way to do business. We're gonna fire our coach because we really want to give this guy an audition."
Mike Florio blasts Giants’ bizarre plan to fire Brian Daboll for Mike Kafka
Florio didn't list any source here and seemed to be thinking his thoughts out loud in this moment but it's an interesting theory for sure. Kafka is probably going to get some looks this offseason so if the Giants knew they weren't going to stick with Daboll after the 2025 season, they could have sat back and thought, 'Hey, maybe we should see what Kafka is capable of and if he's worth keeping around'.
Florio mentioned Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, both of whom had been in the Giants organization before going on to lead Hall of Fame careers elsewhere. Landry was the Giants defensive coordinator from 1954 to 1959 before getting the Dallas Cowboys head coaching job where he won two Super Bowls.
As for Lombardi, he was the Giants offensive coordinator from 1954 to 1958 before taking the head coaching job with the Green Bay Packers. He won three NFL Championships and two Super Bowls during his time with Green Bay. As Florio noted, let's not compare Kafka to these guys by any means but the line of thinking does make sense. If other guys are interested, then why not see what he can do?
There are eight more weeks in the 2025 season so Kafka will have a decent enough sample size to show if he's worth getting a shot as the head coach in New York or if they'll be fine letting him walk out of the building.