The more we discuss potential head-coaching candidates for the New York Giants, the more it becomes clear that among currently available coaches there is no perfect, slam-dunk choice. The few guys who might be are all coaching other NFL teams right now.
With that in mind, I wanted to look at the categories I believe are most important for the next head coach. I have identified four. Within each are probably sub-categories I am not going to dive deeply into.
Below are my categories, the reasons I believe them to be important, and the coaches who I feel at least to some degree possess those characteristics.
I will grade the coaches I list in each category, using a scale of 1-5 points with five being the highest score, based on how I see their fit in each category. At the end, each candidate will get a point total.
This is a subjective rather than a scientific exercise. I recognize there will be disagreement. It is, though, a reference point to discuss candidates, detail what you would like to see in the next head coach, and who you currently prefer.
Why it matters
The Giants have been through Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge, and Brian Daboll since removing Tom Coughlin as head coach after the 2015 season. Of those, only Shurmur had head-coaching experience, and his 9-23 (.281 winning percentage) with the Cleveland Browns hardly established him as a coach players knew they could win with.
The Giants, a proud franchise once capable of fielding great teams, have lost their way. They have no identity, beyond as a losing team. They have no standards, and too little accountability. The shortcomings we often see on the field come from lack of attention to detail, lack of discipline, lack of standards, lack of accountability — all of which lead to not being able to do the things it takes to win when it matters.
The Giants, in my view, would be best served at this point in time by a coach who walks in the door at 1925 Giants Drive in East Rutherford carrying instant credibility and automatically elevating the expectations for everyone around him.
A first-time head coach might be able to establish that. A coach who has been there and done that with a winning pedigree brings it with him.
There is one other factor in favor of an established coach with a winning track record. The Giants’ decision-making structure, with dual ownership, family members and some untouchable people who have been in the front office for decades mean there are a lot of voices beyond the coach and general manager. A strong-willed coach with a track record of success likely has a better chance of navigating that and getting what he feels he needs.
A coach with that kind of cachet would also seem more likely to be able to attract the best assistant coaches.
Which candidates are the best fits?
Mike McCarthy (5 points) — Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, Kevin Stefanski, and Kevin O’Connell would all be on this list if they were available. Right now, none of them are. The Super Bowl-winning coach who is is McCarthy. In 18 years with the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, he has taken teams to the playoffs 12 times. Only six coaches have been there more often. He is 15th in career coaching victories with 174. He has a career winning percentage of .608.
He might not seem like an exciting candidate, but he would walk in the door with instant credibility.
Steve Spagnuolo (4) — Spags has four Super Bowl rings and is probably headed to the Hall of Fame as a defensive coordinator. His time as head coach of the Rams was awful, but he has worked for Tom Coughlin and Andy Reid and knows what winning looks like.
Marcus Freeman (3) — Head-coaching experience and a winning pedigree at Notre Dame. On the plus side, that is a program that is always in the national spotlight, so Freeman is used to attention. On the minus side, Freeman has no NFL experience. College and the NFL are vastly different animals.
Jeff Hafley (3) — The Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator was head coach at Boston College for four years. His record there was mediocre (22-26, .458).
Kliff Kingsbury (3) — Kingsbury went 28-37-1 (.432) as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and 35-40 (.467) at Texas Tech. Experience, yes. Tremendous success, no.
Antonio Pierce (2) — A 9-17 (.346) record with the Las Vegas Raiders, including 4-13 in his only full season as head coach. Pierce won a Super Bowl as a player with the Giants.
Robert Saleh (2) — Four unsuccessful seasons as head coach of the Jets during (20-36, .357) which he raised questions about his fit as a head coach and whether or not New York was the right place for him.
Mike Kafka (1) — Kafka has got to get some credit for being the current interim head coach. It isn’t the same as running and building a team from scratch, but he has had to fire and hire coaches, deal with disciplinary issues, try to course-correct as much as possible, mid-stream, make roster decisions, and manage games.
Culture setter; leader of men
Why it matters
This matters for a lot of the reasons we have already discussed. The Giants have no identity. They talk about standards, but don’t really have them. They have had a laissez-faire leadership style that had led to a lack of accountability. The players won’t want to hear it, but the organization has become used to losing and there are players who have simply it as a way of life.
The only way all of that changes is for a strong leader to set standards, demand and enforce accountability, and be able to get dozens of strong-willed, highly-paid, often-coddled athletes to buy into what he is selling ad play as a team.
Which candidates are the best fits?
This category is difficult to judge. Often, you don’t know for sure if a coach can set and maintain a culture until you see him do it for an extended period of time. Guys like Tomlin and Harbaugh fit, but we are — technically — not considering them due to lack of availability.
Steve Spagnuolo (3) — I don’t think “culture-setter” first when I think about Spagnuolo, but his credibility and what he knows about success with the Giants would be a big part of why you have to think he can do that.
Jeff Hafley (3) — “Culture-setter” and “leader of men” are phrases that pop up consistently when you research Hafley. What we don’t know is if he can do that for an entire NFL team and not just a defense.
Chris Shula (3) — Don Shula’s grandson has only been a defensive coordinator for two years. Can he carry the kind of work he has done with the Rams’ defense to a full team?
Marcus Freeman (3) — He is a culture-setting CEO head coach. That is what you would hire him for. There is just no way to know for certain what his adjustment to the NFL would look like.
Jesse Minter (2) — I really don’t know for certain that the Chargers’ defensive coordinator fits here. He has learned under Jim Harbaugh, though, at Michigan and with the Chargers. So, I’ll give him a couple of points here.
Mike McCarthy (2) — I don’t think of McCarthy as disciplinarian or true culture-setter, but he wins. So, his culture is winning. That counts.
Lou Anarumo (2) — He would have to prove his “culture-setter” bonafides. You don’t hire him, though, unless you think he can be an effective CEO. He is a good defensive coordinator, but I don’t think you hire Anarumo and just let him focus on the defense. You would want him to run the show.
Antonio Pierce (2) — Leadership is the only real reason for hiring Pierce.
David Shaw (1) — The long-time Stanford head coach was front and center on the NFL coaching carousel for many years. That has faded, but Shaw is now in the NFL as passing game coordinator with the Detroit Lions and seems willing to take interviews if they come along. If a team hired him it would be as a CEO.
Anthony Campanile (1) — The Ringer put Campanile in their “culture-setter” coaching candidate category. So, I will play along.
Understanding of the Giants; ties to New York-New Jersey region
Why it matters
This is a category some may find superfluous. I do not.
When you think about the best Giants teams of the Super Bowl era they were coached by Bill Parcells and Tom Coughlin. Both were CEO-style head coaches and culture setters who demanded excellence and pushed players, even when they hated it.
Both also had something else in common. They both had deep ties to both the Giants and the New York/Ne Jersey market before becoming head coach of the Giants.
Parcells was born in Englewood, N.J. and went to River Dell High School, both just a few miles from East Rutherford. He had been Giants defensive coordinator twice (1979 and again in the 1981 and 1982 seasons) before becoming head coach in 1983.
Coughlin was born in Waterloo, N.Y., played for Syracuse, and was Parcells’ receivers coach with the Giants from 1988-90.
Both men knew exactly what they were getting into when they signed on to coach the Giants. They also knew the culture and personality of the market and what the region was all about.
I think history tells us that is important. You can’t turn the Giants into the Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, or Buffalo Bills. The region and the franchise both have a personality. The championship teams throughout Giants history —- even the pre-Super Bowl ones — had a tough, gritty, defense and pass rush first personality.
I am not advocating nepotism. I am not advocating that the Giants look only inside their organizational bubble for answers. I am saying that the best Giants teams have had a similar “type,” and that type extends to the people who coached them.
I think the Giants should lean into their history and try to find someone who fits that type again.
Which candidates are the best fits?
Steve Spagnuolo (5) — Spagnuolo won a Super Bowl as Tom Coughlin’s defensive coordinator in 2007. He built a defense that took a Ben McAdoo-coached team to the playoffs in 2016. He knows the Giants’ organization well, and they know — and love — him.
Jeff Hafley (4) — Hafley is a Bergen County (Montvale) native. His family is still there. He played college football at Siena in upstate New York. He coached at UAlbany, Rutgers and then followed the Coughlin path by becoming head coach at Boston College. Hafley is a Jersey guy who just has not coached an NFL team in New Jersey yet.
Lou Anarumo (4) — Anarumo is a Staten Island native who stayed home to attend college at Wagner. He started his coaching career at Wagner, then did a two-year stint at Syracuse. He coached defensive backs for Pat Shurmur’s Giants in 2018. Anarumo’s son, Louis, has been a Giants scout for four years.
Mike Kafka (4) — He has already been in the organization for four years. Ownership and the front office know him well, and vice versa.
Anthony Campanile (3) — The Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator is a long-shot candidate, but his New Jersey roots make it worth putting him on the list. The 43-year-old Campanile is a Fair Lawn, N.J. native who played college football at Rutgers. He has been an assistant coach at Fair Lawn, Don Bosco Prep, Rutgers, and Boston College.
Antonio Pierce (2) — Pierce was the heart of the Giants’ defense for five seasons, and has a Super Bowl ring from that time.
Robert Saleh (2) — He makes the list simply because of his stint as Jets head coach for 3+ seasons.
Davis Webb (2) — Webb was drafted by the Giants in 2017, and had two stints with the team as a player.
Ability to develop Jaxson Dart … or bring offensive coaches who can
Why it matters
Do I really have to explain this one? The Giants traded up to draft Dart in the first round. The last thing they really wanted to do was draft a quarterback in the first round and then fire the head coach they hoped would develop him before Dart’s rookie season was over.
The Giants are scarred from the mess they made out of Daniel Jones’ time in New York, with three head coaches, two general managers, and five different play callers (Pat Shurmur, Jason Garrett, Freddie Kitchens, Mike Kafka, Brian Daboll).
Dart is the most important Giant, and developing him into the quarterback they think he can be is the most important thing they need to do. Should the Giants get this head-coaching hire wrong, they will be living the Jones scenario all over again.
Which candidates are the best fits?
Mike McCarthy (5) — McCarthy is an offensive-minded coach who has worked with Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Dak Prescott. He knows what good quarterback play looks like.
Kliff Kingsbury (4) — The Washington offensive coordinator has had a hand in the development of Patrick Mahomes, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Caleb Williams. The only reason he doesn’t get five points here is because I don’t see his work with Murray while he was head coach of the Arizona Cardinals as an overwhelming success.
Klint Kubiak (3) — Kubiak is running a successful offense with the Seattle Seahawks. He has the family lineage as son of long-time NFL coach Gary Kubiak. He has worked with Sam Darnold, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, and Brock Purdy.
Davis Webb (2) — The ex-Giant quarterback has never been an offensive coordinator, but he gets a ton of credit in Denver for the development of second-year quarterback Bo Nix. Anyone who has been around him a bit, which I have, understands he has a bright coaching future.
Mike Kafka (3) — Kakfa has, of course, already been working with Dart for a full season. He has had the best vantage point of the quarterback’s rookie season. He also has the advantage of having been part of Patrick Mahomes’ development with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Final tally
This does not mean this is my preferred list of candidates. The Giants might weight one of these categories more heavily than others. They might have a completely different set of criteria. This is just how the math worked out.
Mike McCarthy (12)
Steve Spagnuolo (12)
Jeff Hafley (10)
Mike Kafka (8)
Kliff Kingsbury (7)
Marcus Freeman (6)
Antonio Pierce (6)
Lou Anarumo (6)
Robert Saleh (4)
Anthony Campanile (4)
Davis Webb (4)
Chris Shula (3)
Jesse Minter (2)
David Shaw (1)
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