3) What’s the latest with play-calling duties?
Dan Salomone: This is definitely Brian Daboll’s favorite subject to talk about publicly. We should have asked him to be a guest writer here.
At the Annual League Meeting on April 1, the head coach said the final decision would be made once the Giants get into preseason games. The question is whether he will continue to call plays on offense, which he took over last season, or if that responsibility returns to assistant head coach/offensive coordinator Mike Kafka.
“Look, I have confidence in our staff,” Daboll said at the time. “I have confidence in Mike. I have confidence in the offensive guys. Again, what changes will be made, I’m going to go through the offseason and OTAs. You’re going to see, I know last year you saw me with the microphone, holding it, the walkie-talkie. You’ll see Mike with the microphone at times this year. We will go through that whole process leading to the preseason games and see where we are.”
The Giants will report for training camp on Tuesday, hold their first practice on Wednesday, and open the preseason in Buffalo on Aug. 9.
During rookie minicamp in May, a reporter mentioned to Daboll that Kafka was spotted with the walkie-talking at practice. Daboll responded “good observation” with a smile. A month after that, Kafka was asked about the subject.
“I would say right now, whatever Dabs needs me to do, that is what I’m going to do,” he said during OTAs. “If he needs me to call plays, if he needs me to communicate with the quarterback, if he needs me to do certain things. I am going to do whatever he asks me to do. So that’s kind of the first thing I would say. The next part is you’re learning every year, learning and growing every year. Whether I’m learning from my experiences when I was calling it, when I wasn’t calling it, other play callers across the league, you study them and their habits.”