The New York Giants have fired head coach Brian Daboll and named Mike Kafka interim head coach for the rest of the season.
The Giants are 2-8 and have lost four straight games. They are 11-33 (.250) since making the playoffs in Daboll’s first season as head coach, and 20-40-1 (.336) over Daboll’s three-plus seasons as head coach. Only Bill Arnsparger (.200), Pat Shurmur (.281) and Joe Judge (.303) have lower winning percentages than Daboll among Giants full time head coaches.
This is the third straight season in which the Giants have been 2-8 after 10 games.
Sunday’s meltdown against the Chicago Bears, losing a 10-point lead in the final six minutes of play, was the fourth time this season the Giants had blown double-digit leads. In two of those games, the Giants had 10-point leads with less than four minutes to play.
The worst of those came Week 7 when the Giants led the Denver Broncos 19-0 after three quarters, but ended up losing 33-32. In the process they became the first NFL team in more than 1,600 games to have an 18-point lead with six minutes to play and lose in regulation.
Kafka, who has never been an NFL head coach, has been Daboll’s offensive coordinator since 2022.
Daboll won Coach of the Year in 2022, his first season. That year the Giants went 9-7-1 and defeated the Minnesota Vikings in a wild-card round playoff game.
The Giants started that season 6-1. but went 3-6-1 over the final 10 games.
Daboll had been scheduled to hold his weekly day after game press conference on Monday afternoon. News of his firing broke about an hour before that was to take place.
Kafka, 38, has interviewed for NFL head-coaching jobs each offseason since joining the Giants. Last offseason, he was a finalist for the New Orleans Saints job that went to Kellen Moore.
A former quarterback, Kafka was a 2010 fourth-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles. He began his coaching career with Northwestern in 2016 and joined the staff of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2017. He was with the Chiefs until joining Daboll’s staff in 2022.
The Giants will face the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
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