Mike Kafka: “Our focus and our vision is on Washington” | New York Giants

Mike Kafka: “Our focus and our vision is on Washington” | New York Giants

Hey everybody, just real quick, well, we opened up the window for Arc Green and Darius Muau. So, just so you guys just a little update on that for you. Please raise your hand if you have a question. Paul Schwarz. Hey, Mike. How are you? Hey, Paul. Doing great. Good. Uh, a couple of things. Um, did you get any time away um from it? And if you did, um, what did you ref I’m sure you didn’t get 100% time away. What did you reflect back on maybe what you’ve done so far and what needs to be done moving forward? Yes, to answer your first question, I did get some time, took a few days there at the back end of it to watch to watch my kids play, you know, floor hockey, indoor hockey, some sports. So, I was at some sporting events. Um, that was awesome. So cool to watch them compete and have fun. And then, yeah, absolutely. you had some time to reflect and and think about the first three weeks, think about kind of the future of it and what we wanted to get accomplished, whether that was, you know, via self scout, um, which which I spent a bulk of the time looking at offensively, defensively, special teams wise, working with the coordinators on some self scout stuff and just bouncing ideas off each other. So, that was pretty cool. They’re very productive and you can it’s cool to kind of see that come to life today in some of those meetings we had and had a nice little, you know, kind of walk through to talk through some of those ideas. So, it’s been that’s been a positive and really cool just a good energy in terms of coming back off the buy. One one um one more thing. Um um this is very new to you, right? I mean, this is, you know, in this in this interim role. Um this is not very new to your roster as far as you know, it’s late in the season for them. It’s earlier maybe for you in your mind because this is the start of something. Um I don’t know if you would agree with that or not, but um do you sense any kind of excuse me, selling job you need to do with some of these players coming back after a late buy to um focus on these last four games and, you know, not kind of wait till the end of the season kind of thing. I don’t I don’t sense that. I mean, if you’re in our our team meeting today, if you’re in our our walkthrough today and in the individual meetings, you felt the energy and you felt the urgency for these guys to continue to improve and put together a great week of practice for Washington. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Ed Valentine. Mike, how are you? Good. How you doing, Ed? Good. Um, sort of piggybacks off Paul’s question, but with the late buy, with four weeks left, what is the message, you know, for these guys as they come back as far as, you know, what you want to accomplish the last four weeks? You know, I I think what what the messaging has been is really just focusing on today. focusing on this week, not look ahead four weeks in the future. Just focus on how we can improve. Um, and then that’s that’s one of the great reasons why we had a great like great bye-week is to evaluate all those things and evaluate, you know, our schemes, the play callers. Like I did a deep dive into how I’m calling the games and where I can get better at. And um, it was cool to kind of to really, you know, be really critical of the areas that I can that I can get better at. So, you know, coming with a great plan for the players, how they can improve, how we can get better, and then really all focus on Washington. What’s the value of I mean, I know for you, you know, you’re a lot of guys trying to compete for jobs, compete for roster spots, you know, put good good film out there. Um, what’s the value, you know, at two and 11, you know, for for players of of winning these games regardless of the regardless of the record? I mean, our our focus and our vision is is on is on Washington and how we can improve as a team. How can we improve individually and then as a group and then as a team. So, again, our coordinators and our coaches have a really clear plan on how we want to do that and how we want to attack it. So, now it’s about bringing that to life and no better than than than our players having that opportunity and and continuing to find ways for them to get better. I think as an NFL football player, you know, you want to be able to maximize yourself and that’s that’s what our challenge is as a coaching staff is to continue to maximize our players. So, putting them in a good position, continuing to, you know, have an aggressive mindset and um and then attacking this week with great urgency. Thank you. Thanks, Ryan Donley. Hey, Mike. How are you? Hey, Ryan. Uh, I was a minute late here. I’m at the Brian Burns event. Uh, I saw Twitter tells me you updated some uh, practice windows, but other guys, last time we saw Tyrone Tracy, he was pretty banged up at the end of that game. Um, Kavon Tibido, do you expect those guys to uh, be back on the practice field at all this week or before the end of the season? Yeah, we’ll we’ll see on on on both of those guys right now. They’re just getting the rehab. Really, today is kind of one of their just kind of working out, getting through the walk through. tomorrow. We’ll have a better feel once we kind of see him in the training room today and tomorrow. So, we’ll have a better feel tomorrow for you. Okay. Uh what happened on over the last week with Brian Cox? Yeah, Ryan, you know, I’m not going to get into the into the details of of what happened with B Cox. Just the same as I’m not going to get into the details of how we handle, you know, our players. Those are those are tough decisions, but I’m going to keep those in house and um you know, just out of respect for everybody. But I mean the one thing I will say is you know being in this job for the last few weeks um you know having to make some decisions and some of them have been you know very public many of them haven’t been and um you know I think what what I’ve learned is you know how can we continue to put this team in the best position to win games and um and that’s what I’m evaluating. So everything top to bottom, taking the time to do that, being very detailed, very very be um you know, I would say just having a good pulse of like what this team needs and understanding how I want to get that done and just having a clear message there. So um that’s what we thought was best for for the team. That’s what I thought was best for the team, so we we went with it. What do you think uh we’re going to talk to him in a minute, so I’m curious. What do you think of the season Germaine Aluminor has had? Yeah, really really proud of Germaine being with him here for the last few years. Um his his work ethic, his just intentionality in the in the meetings and then the production he’s had on the field has just been super impressive to watch him go out there and play play his butt off each play in the run game and the pass game. And you know, he’s up versus, you know, a bunch of different challenges this year in terms of um pass rushers on the edge and he’s stepped up every single time. So, I’m very proud of Germaine. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Evan Barnes. Hey, Mike. I’m just curious when you said you self scouted um just kind of how you call plays. Just kind of what are some things you notice as far as like, you know, during that observation you had? Yeah. The the tendencies when I’m calling certain things, you know, certain parts of the game when I’m calling certain things or things that I’m not calling that I wish I would get to. you know, I go back and look at the call sheets and see some of the things like, you know, each game you have a call sheet and we kind of highlight the ones that that we did call on that game and which ones we didn’t call. So, I’m I’m looking at call sheets saying, “Why didn’t I ever get back to this play or this series of of of ideas?” Um, just taking notes, looking at the notes from postgame stuff and thoughts that we had after the game, which, you know, things that we really like that we wanted to get to. So, just being really critical of myself on on things that our our players do really well and how can we get to those things more. How can we get to some alternative things that complement it to give ourselves an advantage? And then also, I know the Commanders obviously, you know, they didn’t play Jaden at the rest of Jane Daniels the rest of the game. They said he could have played in. When you’re looking at Washington, do you kind of prepare for both Jaden and Marcus Mariota just because of, you know, how fluid that situation is? Yeah, absolutely. You have to look at both. I think they both have a similar skill set. They’re both able to run and and throw and and operate. You know, Marcus is a veteran quarterback. I, you know, remember him from my time in Tennessee. We played together there for for a hot minute for for a couple weeks. But yeah, a lot of respect for both of those guys and Cliff does a great job with the offense. Um, yeah. So, it’s going to be it’s going to be a big challenge for us. Thank you. Thanks. Last one. Art Stapleton. Oh, sorry. Two more. Okay. And then Tom Rock. Hey, Mike. How’s it going, man? Hey, Eric. Uh, just curious, you’ve you’ve obviously been in this situation now as an interim head coach. I’m just curious. I I know it probably seems like, you know, I’m not sure if it seems long or if it seems like it just happened yesterday, but what are the challenges now that you’re in this position uh to to get things that you want done and the personalities that are involved? And I would imagine it’s just not as simple as, okay, I’m the head coach now, so I get to do it my way. So, how hard is that to implement your way and how you see things in this role? Yeah, I think I think what I know is if you open up lines of communication and collaborate with the great people we have here already. Sure, there’s some things that if you feel like fits our fits our team and it’s going to help us win, those are some of the little things that you want to maybe tweak or change, but it just opened up lines of communication across the board with really all the departments. Um, communicating kind of my vision, um, communicating how how I see things happening and then working with each other to get it to get it cleaned up and fixed. So, if there’s if there’s problems and there’s issues, then being, you know, being able to be a problem solver and be an asset and um and clean those things up that I think we need to get cleaned up. And then the things that are working really well, you build on that. You know, I think there’s just a lot of opportunity for growth across the board with our players, with our coaches, with our staff, how we can continue to grow and get better. And, you know, having this by-week really opened my eyes to some of those areas. and you know as best I can and the amount of time I have to to do that cuz you know again I I I come to the office there’s there’s there’s things you got to make sure you touch base with the players the staff but then also like there’s a game planning part we have a game we got to play and and and getting that stuff organized and you know I’m lucky to have a great staff I’m lucky to have a great group around me that can support me and um and kind of keep me on track and then wherever I can insert myself and put my fingerprint on it. The other thing would be, you know, a 44 year old quarterback just signed with a practice squad in the NFL. Have you given up on that dream at yourself? Is that is that did that hit? I haven’t seen I haven’t seen it yet. River is signed to the practice squad and just curious when you hear that uh you know, you know yourself, you know your body. I’m not comparing contrasting, but you know, could you imagine? I know where you’re going with this, Art. Yeah. In a different world. My time is over. That time is over. That time is over for me. But that’s a that’s great for him. That’s awesome. Hope he does great. Thanks, Mike. Thanks. Last one. Tom Rock. Mike, I I just had a a real quick one since Indiana’s been in the news lately. Micah McFaden, is he uh up and running, it looked like, and and is he have any chance of coming back this year? Uh yeah, I think I think he does have a chance. Don’t know when. Don’t have a timeline there yet, but I think I think he definitely has a chance. He’s certainly walking around with his chest puffed out a little bit more these days. What what would be the benefit, I guess, of of getting him back on the field, even if it’s just for a game or two at the end of this? Yeah, he’s he’s itching to get out there, and I know as soon as our, you know, our training staff feels like it’s appropriate, we’ll get him out there. I know he’s he’s chomping at the bit to be out there with his teammates and contribute in any way possible.

Interim head coach Mike Kafka speaks to the media Tuesday from the Quest Diagnostics Training Center.

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