This Sunday Mike Kafka begins his seven-game audition to be seriously considered to become the next head coach of the New York Giants, without the “interim” designation. He won’t have to look far for possible competition. The Green Bay Packers will be the opponent, and Kafka will be matching wits against Packers’ defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, considered one of the hot new candidates for an NFL head coaching position.
This is not a post about who should become the next head coach of the New York Giants. Ed has discussed 16 different candidates for the job at this point. I hope Kafka does a great job in the next seven games, so much so that the Giants just decide to bring him back as permanent rather than interim head coach. That may or may not happen, and it’s not worth discussing right now. Instead, this is a post about whether the Giants head coaching job is an attractive one, and for what type of coach. There are four factors to consider for any coaching candidate:
Location
I’m a native New Yorker. It has always felt like home to me, even (especially) when I lived in California for a few years. I can’t imagine living in any other part of the country now. Many of you who are “local” may feel the same way.
New York has its pros and cons, though, and whether you see the pro or the con more depends on a lot of things. First, how weird is it still after all these years that my team actually plays in New Jersey rather than New York? For a head coaching candidate, that’s probably not of much importance. What may be of importance, though, are the high costs, the eternal choking traffic, the vulturous press, the sometimes frigid winter weather, the stadium that looks like an air conditioner and has no soul, and the artificial turf field that (reports of its safety to the contrary) is anathema to many NFL players. Some head coaching candidates – especially those prominent enough to call their shot – may not want to come to this area and may not want the scrutiny that they’ll surely get here. We’re not in Jacksonville anymore, Toto.
The flip side of that issue is that if you succeed in New York as a Giants head coach, you’re a legend and you’re set for life. There’s also the question of the competitiveness of people in sports. A coach with enough confidence (and ego) may see this downtrodden franchise as the ultimate challenge to meet, the highest mountain to scale.
Ownership
Pro Football Sports Network ranked all 32 NFL ownership groups last year. The Giants came in No. 26. The reasons given were the run of failed head coaches, and the disastrous 2024 Hard Knocks. Not that those aren’t issues about the franchise, but if you want to be the head coach of the team you’re not going to say to yourself, “I shouldn’t go there because the guys before me were bad, and if I go there it means I’m bad too.” Of more legitimate concern are concrete issues like:
- Will these owners spend money to get players? Once again, our colleagues at Pro Football Sports Network have ranked all 32 NFL franchises by wealth. The Giants come in at No. 24, with a number of $2.1B. That matters because through the magic of salary cap avoidance, teams can spend more cash in any given season than the actual salary cap number…if the owners are willing to pony up the money. Spotrac ranks the Giants 14th in the NFL in cash spending this year at $303M. That’s a reasonable enough number not to deter a head coaching candidate from coming here.
- Do these owners meddle with the operation of the team? You gotta love it, there’s a ranking for almost every question you can ask. Bleacher Report ranked sports’ most meddlesome owners. Only two NFL team owners made the list: Jerry Jones of Dallas, and Jimmy Haslam of Cleveland. (New York was represented, though, by the Knicks’ James Dolan.) That’s good news, and in fact John Mara and Steve Tisch don’t have a reputation of meddling in the every day operation of their teams, though you wouldn’t know it from the chatter on ‘X’. The big issue for many fans, though, is the family infiltration of 1925 Giants Drive, most notably Chris Mara, Senior Player Personnel Executive and brother of John Mara, and Tim McDonnell, Director of Player Personnel and grandson of Wellington Mara. Exactly how much influence they have is endlessly discussed among fandom. Whether a prospective head coach sees it is an issue is impossible to know.
The general manager
This issue has two distinct components. Technically, the head coach answers to the General Manager. In reality, things don’t always work that way. The most glaring example is Jacksonville. GM Trent Baalke had developed a poor reputation, to put it mildly (Exhibit A: Travon Walker over Aidan Hutchinson in 2022). By 2025, head coach candidates were declining interviews because Baalke had been retained. This led owner Shad Khan to fire Baalke so that he could interview, and then hire, Liam Coen to be head coach.
It’s not clear what type of reputation Giants GM Joe Schoen has around the league. Ed wrote about this last year, suggesting some mixed opinions. Much of the Giants’ press contingent has a negative view of Schoen’s performance, but what matters for this post is what head coaching candidates think. If Schoen wants to hire a first-time head coach it will probably not matter. For example, Ben Johnson, a first timer but a hot coaching prospect, agreed to go to the Bears despite GM Ryan Poles botching his first head coach hire, giving up a second round pick for Chase Claypool, and selecting Caleb Williams (who admittedly played well against the Giants) over Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye.
My guess, though, is that the Giants don’t want another first-time head coach. They’ve had a lot of those in recent years. That changes the dynamic. An established head coach like John Harbaugh or Kevin Stefanski (if by the grace of God either one becomes available) is going to want more of a one-to-one partnership with Schoen, rather than a boss-subordinate arrangement. Think, for example, Sean McVay-Les Snead. We don’t know exactly what the dynamic between Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen was. It seemed like a partnership, but both Daboll and Schoen were first-timers, albeit ones who’d been working together for years.
A big issue for any established head-coaching candidate is going to be what Schoen’s and the ownership’s commitment is to bringing in more talent, whatever the cost. The NFL salary cap is mostly a mirage, what with the workarounds such as void years and option bonuses. Schoen has avoided void years like the plague since becoming GM except for his first year on the job, when he inherited a $40M deficit from Dave Gettleman and had to stand on his head just to put 53 players on the field and used a little void money in the process.
Schoen’s philosophy has apparently been not to spend a lot until the team is in position to win. The problem is that that’s a chicken-and-egg problem. In today’s NFL you may be bringing a knife to a gunfight when everyone else is using these cap gimmicks to upgrade their talent. Which comes first: The spending, or the success? The Giants are one of only two teams in the NFL (as of last winter) who had no money at all in void years, per Nick Korte of Over The Cap:
New England is doing fine this year to say the least without any void money, but that’s because Drake Maye, in his second season, has exploded. We’ll see what they do in 2026. Most good teams, though, have at least a moderate amount of money in void years costs:
Giants fans lament the Washington Commanders’ racing past the Giants last year with new GM Adam Peters by drafting Jayden Daniels at No. 2. Peters however made good use of void years ($29.6M worth) to sign prominent free agents and put together a veteran team that could contend immediately. Think Bobby Wagner would be setting the edge and clogging the middle on running plays better than the current group of Giants’ linebackers? Buffalo, Seattle, the Los Angeles Rams are all using reasonable amounts of void year money to make sure holes are filled on their rosters.
I’m not saying that Schoen had to go all Howie Roseman this year ($390.4M in void money according to Korte). But some judicious void year spending would have given the Giants’ a better chance to win a couple of those games they lost. A sought-after experienced head coach is going to want to get that kind of commitment from Schoen and from Giants ownership (including Julia Koch, now with a 10% ownership stake, whose net worth is $81B).
The roster
A head coach can’t work miracles. Say what you want about Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge (and Brian Daboll), but they took over Giants teams that had relatively little talent. That’s because none of them were in a position to dictate which team they were going to go to. A prominent experienced head coach, which is what the Giants should be seeking, will have some control over where he lands. He’ll want to be comfortable with the city, the ownership group, and the GM, of course. But nothing – NOTHING – matters as much as the roster he inherits.
For the first time in over a decade, the Giants have a pretty decent amount of exciting talent on the roster, almost all of it young. Jaxson Dart still has work to do, not the least of it to learn the talent of self-preservation. But there’s probably not a head coaching candidate out there who’s not drooling to have a chance to coach a team led by Dart. At age 22, his football IQ is already off the charts. He doesn’t have the arm strength of some of the best QBs in the NFL today. He does have arm talent, though – the ability to throw accurately from different arm angles and bases, the touch to layer the ball into the openings of a zone defense, the ability to throw soft or hard as needed. He is already demonstrating that he can use all parts of the field and that he can read defenses and find answers. He shows leadership qualities and the infectious enthusiasm that can carry a team with him. I am frankly stunned at how well he has played right off the bat. It’s not Patrick Mahomes, and it will probably never be. Just the fact that I have to say that, though, tells you everything you need to know about why any head coaching candidate who has a choice of where he might want to go will give the Giants serious, serious thought.
The thing is, he’s not the only one. The Giants have young elite, or potentially elite, talent in other places. Dart throwing to Malik Nabers next year already gives me the shivers. Dart, Nabers and Cam Skattebo on the field together gives me even more shivers. Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux, Abdul Carter, and Dexter Lawrence (once Dex fixes whatever is wrong with him and once the new coach hires a defensive coordinator who plays aggressively) are the foundation of a great defense.
Obviously there’s work yet to be done – if the Giants’ roster was completely set, they’d be better than 2-8 and not looking for a new head coach. A potent receiving option opposite Nabers would help a lot. The offensive line needs reinforcements beyond the great Andrew Thomas (remember when we were worried about his return from Lisfranc surgery?), although possibly just at guard depending on whether Jermaine Eluemunor returns. The defense needs an overhaul at off-ball linebacker and at least two defensive backs who can actually cover. Schoen gets grief for missing on draft picks that would have filled some of those holes. The fact, though, is that this Giants team hung in there with Kansas City, beat the Chargers, should have beaten Denver, did beat Philadelphia handily once, and should have beaten Chicago this past weekend. All of those teams may make the playoffs; one of them may well win the Super Bowl. This roster is far from barren. Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports agrees and thinks the Giants’ head coaching position should draw considerable interest from prominent candidates.
Howie Roseman drafted Jalen Reagor with Justin Jefferson on the board. John Lynch moved up in the draft to take Trey Lance. Colts GM Chris Ballard took Anthony Richardson at No. 4. Look how long it has taken Kansas City to replace Tyreek Hill with a top-flight WR. Look at Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s (hired the same year as Schoen) four drafts in Minnesota – other than Jordan Addison, he hasn’t yet hit on any other draft picks, although there’s still plenty of time for J.J. McCarthy to become the guy there. His first first-round draft pick, Lewis Cine, is out of the league. For all the flowers tossed Adam Peters’ way, we’ve seen that without Jayden Daniels, who fell into his lap at No. 2 last year, that Commanders roster can’t win games.
If the other issues discussed here can be dealt with, the Giants have to be one of the most attractive job openings there will be this off-season for a head coach. There’s no excuse for the Giants not to get someone with experience and past success at the NFL level.
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