The New York Giants did not win Mike Kafka’s debut as an NFL head coach on Sunday. It is certainly, though, hard to blame the Giants’ interim head coach.
It was a pretty impressive first act for Kafka in his audition for the full-time coaching job in 2026.
- Kafka disciplined rookie edge defender Abdul Carter.
- The head coach, calling offensive plays, went for it on fourth down four times. Three of those were on one drive.
- Kafka said he would have gone for two if the Giants had scored a touchdown in the final two minutes when they were behind 27-20.
- An insistence on pounding the ball with the running game led to a 38-carry, 142-yard day that saw the Giants dominate the time of possession, 35:56-24:04.
- Kafka took the ball rather than deferring, which has become standard, when the Giants won the coin toss. That enabled the Giants to jump to an early 7-0 lead.
- Kafka lost an early challenge, but there was no issue with the mechanics of his first-ever challenge.
- Kafka elevated Elijah Chatman and Dalen Cambre from the practice squad for the first time. Each played big roles. Chatman was part of the defensive line rotation, and was a lead blocker from the fullback position on one of Devin Singletary’s two touchdown runs. Cambre, an undrafted free agent rookie was an All-American special teams player at Louisiana, had a solo tackle and an assisted tackle in kickoff coverage.
Kafka wasn’t ready to reflect on any overriding emotions about his first time on an NFL sideline as the boss.
“I’m sure there will be. Not right now, but I’m sure there will be at some time,” Kafka said. “My focus was on the game. My focus was on the players,
putting them in the best positions, just thinking through how we were going to play the game. Again, talking about some of the weather stuff, some of the substitution stuff. So that’s really all my focus was, just on the game.”
Kafka said over and over in the post-game press conference that he wanted the Giants to be aggressive above all else.
He led from the front on that account.
The fourth-down decisions and the early challenge flag were part of that. He called an offense that played some bully-ball against the Packers, running the ball 38 times while throwing it just 29. The Giants had drives of 15 and 16 plays in the second half, and wound up holding the ball for 35:56 to just 24:04 for Green Bay.
“We want to be aggressive. That’s, to me, as a former player, being around a lot of good play callers, head coaches, like you want to have an aggressive mentality on offense and defense, special teams,” Kafka said after the game. “So that’s really the messaging throughout. We continue to be aggressive, whether it’s one-on-one situations, whether it’s by play call, or whether it’s just by style of play. I want that to be a stamp of what our team’s about.”
Kafka’ Giants are not going to win games until they figure out how to maximize the obvious front-seven talent they have on defense and get stops late in games when it matters. Sunday’s game was the fifth time this season the Giants have lost a game in which they had the lead, and in four of those games, they led at some point in the fourth quarter.
Kafka, though, wasn’t throwing the defense under the bus on Sunday or pointing a finger at embattled defensive coordinator Shane Bowen.
“Our defense is battling, playing their butts off,” Kafka said.“ At the end of it, we’ve got to make a couple more plays. But I really, really like how we approached it today. Aggressive mentality across the board. There were some one-on-one opportunities on the back end and the front end that we got to make. I’m going to continue to challenge those guys to do that in practice and then it will eventually turn over for us.”
After admitting he had benched Carter, Kafka did not pile on. He propped up the rookie.
“He played his butt off. He practiced his tail off, played his butt off. I’m really happy about Abdul and excited to watch him continue to grow and continue to play a lot more as a pro,” Kafka said.
“I love Abdul and what he brings to this team, the skill set he has. This guy loves ball. I’m excited again to watch him attack this week of practice and continue to work and grow and be the great player that I think he is.”
Quarterback Jameis Winston, who was making his first appearance for the Giants on Sunday, was bummed that the team didn’t win for the new coach.
“Kaf is very poised and he played the quarterback position. He saw great fight in our team. We fought hard, we fought to the end,” Winston said. “It was unfortunate that we finished the way that we did, man. That’s why I really wanted to win this game and I’m just going to keep getting better, man. But Kaf is a great coach, man, he brought great energy and it’s tough that we didn’t pull it out.”
Veteran guard Jon Runyan said Kafka did well in his first week of leading an NFL team.
“He did a good job being a leader in the locker room and on the field, keeping guys engaged, inspiring them on the sideline,” Runyan said. “He brought a lot of energy and I think everyone fed off that.”
“Everything’s been super-good so far. Just upset we couldn’t get that first win for him today.”
If Kafka is going to earn the full-time job with the Giants he is going to have to find a way to pull a rabbit out of his hat and turn some of these frustrating late-game losses into victories.
Like his team, he did a lot of good things on Sunday. It just wasn’t good enough.
