The Giants will be getting a more seasoned and accomplished offensive play-caller — and also, as an added and welcome by-product, perhaps a calmer head coach — now that it appears Brian Daboll will be reaching back into his past to reclaim what got him to this exalted position in the first place.
It is not even a secret anymore that Daboll will be the new play-caller on offense this season, a responsibility handled in 2022 and most of 2023 by offensive coordinator Mike Kafka. The Giants were 16th in the league in scoring in 2022 and plummeted to 30th in 2023, and to say this regression is all on Kafka is akin to saying your basement flooded because someone dropped an ice cube on the floor.
This spring, it has been Daboll’s voice in the radio transmitters in the helmets of the quarterbacks. This is not breaking in a newbie who has never done it before.
“I feel like that’s his comfortable spot,’’ second-year running back Eric Gray told The Post on Wednesday after the Giants wrapped up their second and final practice of their mandatory minicamp. “That’s what he’s used to doing, he’s been an OC. He knows his stuff. I feel like he goes home and just looks at plays all day. It’s really good.’’
When he was hired by the Giants, Daboll became a head coach for the first time, at any level, and he decided calling the plays — which he did, to great acclaim, the previous four seasons with the Bills — was going to be too much to handle and not the best way for him to oversee the entire operation.
That was the right call then. This is the right call now.
It is year No. 3 for Daboll, and the Giants need all hands on deck to fix an offense that added dynamic rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers, initiated changes on the offensive line to finally solve a decade-long problem and will bring back a healthy Daniel Jones at quarterback. A play-caller often gets too much credit when things go right and too much blame when things go awry. Still, Daboll worked his way up the coaching ladder in large part based on his acumen with this particular skill set and his expertise is needed now, more than ever.
There could be a supplementary benefit to all this. Keeping his emotions in check on the sideline is an area Daboll wants to improve and the constant drumbeat of calling play after play should make it difficult for him to find the time to blow his stack when things go south.
“There’s an element of that,’’ Daboll said.
Kafka, then 34, gained all sorts of acclaim in 2022 as Jones had a career-best season and the Giants won a playoff game. Kafka actually gained serious traction for head-coaching openings, interviewing with the Panthers, Texans, Colts and Cardinals. After the 2023 season, despite the alarming lack of production on offense, Kafka spoke to the Titans and Seahawks about their head-coach vacancies.
Kafka’s fast track gets interrupted if he doesn’t call plays this season. Surely, that will sting, but it is not the end of the world for him. It wasn’t for Daboll, who in his 23 years in the NFL knows what it feels like to get demoted. He was the Dolphins offensive coordinator in 2012 and got bumped down to tight ends coach in New England in 2013.
“You’re going to have some tough times,’’ Daboll said. “There is always a lot to learn, a lot to self-evaluate.
“But certainly those lows, you’re going to have them, particularly in this league. They’re never fun, but they are very good learning tools if you use them the right way.’’
The time is nearing for Kafka to take that advice to heart. When the Giants reassemble after a six-week break, Daboll figures to be making the calls once training camp opens up.
“I think Dabes hasn’t really made a final call on that yet,’’ Kafka said. “Whatever decision he goes with, I fully support.’’
Kafka this spring had been reticent on all this, until now, perhaps realizing it is silly to deny something that appears inevitable. He was given the added title of assistant head coach but subtracting the game-day role of play-caller is a hit.
“Every year brings new opportunities,’’ Kafka said, “and so I’m taking this as an opportunity just to continue to grow as a coach and be an asset to those coaches and players.”
Kafka said “I’m not worried about that kind of stuff right now’’ when asked how this will affect his chances of becoming a head coach in the future. He said he will “kind of lean back on my experience in Kansas City,’’ when he was an offensive assistant and head coach Andy Reid called the plays, with offensive coordinators Eric Bieniemy and later Matt Nagy filling support roles.
New York Giants tight end Darren Waller is calling it a career.
Waller, 31, discussed his decision to retire in a video posted to YouTube on Sunday, saying that a health scare he experienced in November gave him clarity about his life.
Waller detailed a “very scary situation” during which he struggled to breathe and ultimately spent 3½ days in the hospital unable to stand up, use the restroom or feed himself. Waller didn’t disclose the exact nature of the illness he battled.
“I come out of that experience and I’m sitting in the hospital, and I go back into my daily life and I’m like, ‘Pretty clear, I almost just lost my life, and I don’t know if I really feel if I would have died that I would have felt great about how my life was going if I died at that time.'”
Upon reflecting, he said he “found a lot of joy” and “had amazing moments” playing in the NFL “but the passion has slowly been fading,” leading to his retirement decision.
“Eternally grateful for the game of football. I wouldn’t be able to have this conversation or to think things through or be self-reflective if it wasn’t for an opportunity to save my life and go to rehab, which the NFL offered me,” he said. “They also gave me an opportunity to reestablish myself, to come back into the world and do something productive. Provide an example, be a leader, be a difference-maker in my craft but also in my day-to-day wherever I go.”
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