Saints are flying Kafka and Weaver in for 2nd interviews [interviews rescheduled to January 24-25 due to snowstorm in N.O.] (82 Viewers)

[Doug B]

This is an elongated deflection of facts during Dennis Allen's tenure of being dealt a constant hand of terrible luck and injuries on top of not having a true QB1 half of the years.

My post had nothing to do with Dennis Allen.

EDIT: Mea culpa for quoting you though -- you were talking about Dennis Allen. I was just riffing off of the "look beyond the results" statement to bring it back around to why a guy like Mike Kafka shouldn't be written off. I should have been clearer.

 

[Covington Saint]

My post had nothing to do with Dennis Allen.

EDIT: Mea culpa for quoting you though -- you were talking about Dennis Allen. I was just riffing off of the "look beyond the results" statement to bring it back around to why a guy like Mike Kafka shouldn't be written off. I should have been clearer.

I'm completely with you here. People who just see the Giants were a bad team and then put that on kafka are pretty short sighted. Its a fair discussion point but if someone thinks that's all needed to know then its a very bad point of view.

 

[St. Widge]

do not underestimate how bad we got positionally shredded with injuries. OL. WR. RB at times. CB at times. On and On. the excuses during some of the years were completely legitimate. Nobody saw the bottom falling out on michael thomas like it did. or ryan ramczyk... or cam jordan's extention being a bad decision.

I don't want to relitigate the DA thing, but things were bad before this year when all the injuries hit. And many, including me, wanted him fired after his first year when he showed a lack of ability to handle players and the PR part of the job. That became more obvious in his second year.

The results were mediocre the first two years and it looked to me, and others, like those teams should have won more games than they did. So, I think DA is at best a guy that gets you average results when everything is perfect but struggles when anything goes wrong. Problem is that things are going to go wrong every year and DA could never overcome that in games or during an entire season. It's why his record in one score games was so bad and why his record was around .500 or below even in average years as far as bad luck goes.

He's just not a coach that can make a team better than the sum of its parts and he even seems to make them a little worse than the sum of its parts. And that ignores the fact that he was just bad at talent evaluation outside of DBs. Which is why he didn't see what we had in Hendrickson, Ellis, or Baun and why we drafted guy like Davenport, Turner, and Foskey.

 

[3ParStillDriver]

I'm completely with you here. People who just see the Giants were a bad team and then put that on kafka are pretty short sighted. Its a fair discussion point but if someone thinks that's all needed to know then its a very bad point of view.

Not entirely. Its very fair to note that not a single team that Kafka has been associated with in any manner has neither been elevated nor unelevated. The Chiefs were still the Chiefs and superbowl contending after his departure, and the Giants were still the Giants rivaling for top 10 picks prior to his arrival and during his tenure.

It may lead to lots of different speculation, but there is a story there in and of itself.

 

[Covington Saint]

I don't want to relitigate the DA thing, but things were bad before this year when all the injuries hit. And many, including me, wanted him fired after his first year when he showed a lack of ability to handle players and the PR part of the job. That became more obvious in his second year.

The results were mediocre the first two years and it looked to me, and others, like those teams should have won more games than they did. So, I think DA is at best a guy that gets you average results when everything is perfect but struggles when anything goes wrong. Problem is that things are going to go wrong every year and DA could never overcome that in games or during an entire season. It's why his record in one score games was so bad and why his record was around .500 or below even in average years as far as bad luck goes.

He's just not a coach that can make a team better than the sum of its parts and he even seems to make them a little worse than the sum of its parts. And that ignores the fact that he was just bad at talent evaluation outside of DBs. Which is why he didn't see what we had in Hendrickson, Ellis, or Baun and why we drafted guy like Davenport, Turner, and Foskey.

Dennis immediately insults taysom and moves him to the janitorial closet upon hiring.
1st year we had andy dalton and jameis.
2nd year Carr was badly injured much of the year with a decimated OL with a shattered WR group. It was bad.

 

[St. Widge]

Dennis immediately insults taysom and moves him to the janitorial closet upon hiring.
1st year we had andy dalton and jameis.
2nd year Carr was badly injured much of the year with a decimated OL with a shattered WR group. It was bad.

It's not like DA didn't have control over who his QBs were even if he didn't have control over injuries, to which he contributed due to optional stretching and not straightening out the strength and conditioning staff. And the OL was only decimated in the second year because DA failed to get the talent they needed on the OL.

But it really doesn't matter what I, you, or anyone else on this board thinks about DA because the players in the team lost faith in him as a HC and made that clear to Mrs. Benson. That's really all we need to know to know that he wasn't a good HC and needed to be let go.

 

[Covington Saint]

It's not like DA didn't have control over who his QBs were even if he didn't have control over injuries, to which he contributed due to optional stretching and not straightening out the strength and conditioning staff.

But it really doesn't matter what I, you, or anyone else on this board thinks about DA because the players in the team lost faith in him as a HC and made that clear to Mrs. Benson. That's really all we need to know to know that he wasn't a good HC and needed to be let go.

also says a lot about half the players that quit. they need to go too. i'm not trying to overly appear to stick up for da, i don't think he's a great coach. I think he could have been a good enough coach had we had better injury luck during a time where we were thin to which was not DA's fault.

 

[St. Widge]

also says a lot about half the players that quit. they need to go too. i'm not trying to overly appear to stick up for da, i don't think he's a great coach. I think he could have been a good enough coach had we had better injury luck during a time where we were thin to which was not DA's fault.

The players didn't quit. They just made it clear that DA should not be the HC.

 

[3ParStillDriver]

The players didn't quit. They just made it clear that DA should not be the HC.

I think most of us can agree that some players were putting in half to three quarters effort at one point unless the ball came their way or got it in hand.

 

[Saint KayBee]

Not entirely. Its very fair to note that not a single team that Kafka has been associated with in any manner has neither been elevated nor unelevated. The Chiefs were still the Chiefs and superbowl contending after his departure, and the Giants were still the Giants rivaling for top 10 picks prior to his arrival and during his tenure.

It may lead to lots of different speculation, but there is a story there in and of itself.

The 2021 Giants went 4-13, Judge Joe Brown got fired, in came Daboll & his staff. In 2022 Daniel Jones put up his best season in his career, and the Giants won a playoff game. In 2023 Daniel Jones only played 6 games (still finished second on the team in rushing) and they had no WR1, so teams were able to focus on Saquon (962 rushing yards in 14 games) and they went 6-11 for it. In 2024 with Jones back, Saquon gone, and a clear-cut WR1, Daboll decided to call plays and that Kafka should focus on development and analysis. Three wins, quarterback gone. Maybe Kafka should have stayed in the headset.

 

[HogsNSaints]

The Kafka v Brady argument just feels like one of the wildest I’ve had to have on the internet.

One has worked within woefully unsuccessful offenses or offenses that got even better when he was out the door, while the other has pretty much peaked/elevated every offense he’s been involved with.

The anti-Brady sentiment is largely that he’s “inexperienced”, but every time you bring up Kafka’s progressively more dreadful Giants offenses - the argument is that playcalling was taken out of his hands after only 1 season as a “true coordinator”.

If we are essentially saying he’s only had 1 year of control time, and the rest of their horrendous play is “not his fault”, doesn’t it also mean he is just as inexperienced as Joe Brady in a leadership capacity?

Make it make sense…..

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

At this rate, if you connect the dots, looks like @St. Geezy may have been on the proper trail all along.

Saints likely knew that Jets was Glenn's preferred spot, and barring a catastrophe on their end weren't likely to get a 2nd interview. So they scheduled their two Rooney Rule candidates for 2nd interviews ( Kafka, Weaver) and will likely to Pivot to McCarthy once those are completed.

Still will hold out some hope for Kafka but the best guy left on the circuit is likely McCarthy. He's available because he and Jerry couldn't agree on a contract, not because he was fired.

And w/ rumors that Jerry was being cheap w/ the staff, it probably made sense for McCarthy to get out of there anyway.

 

[No2DC]

At this rate, if you connect the dots, looks like @St. Geezy may have been on the proper trail all along.

Saints likely knew that Jets was Glenn's preferred spot, and barring a catastrophe on their end weren't likely to get a 2nd interview. So they scheduled their two Rooney Rule candidates for 2nd interviews ( Kafka, Weaver) and will likely to Pivot to McCarthy once those are completed.

Still will hold out some hope for Kafka but the best guy left on the circuit is likely McCarthy. He's available because he and Jerry couldn't agree on a contract, not because he was fired.

And w/ rumors that Jerry was being cheap w/ the staff, it probably made sense for McCarthy to get out of there anyway.

I get what you're saying, but in most careers, if your boss doesn't renew your contract, most people interpret that as being fired. I've been warming up to the idea of Mike, but he was fired for all practical purposes, even if we all agree that Jerry is an idiot.
Also, they need to scrap the Rooney rule at this point; it's just becoming a mockery of the original intent. Owners are going to hire who they want, and if they have biases, sitting down with the next Mike Tomlin will not change your views on minorities. I mean, one franchisee said he was too hip-hop.

 

[Shotgunred]

I would be happy with McCarthy, Brady, or Kingsbury. Actually worked out nicely for us.

 

[3ParStillDriver]

The 2021 Giants went 4-13, Judge Joe Brown got fired, in came Daboll & his staff. In 2022 Daniel Jones put up his best season in his career, and the Giants won a playoff game. In 2023 Daniel Jones only played 6 games (still finished second on the team in rushing) and they had no WR1, so teams were able to focus on Saquon (962 rushing yards in 14 games) and they went 6-11 for it. In 2024 with Jones back, Saquon gone, and a clear-cut WR1, Daboll decided to call plays and that Kafka should focus on development and analysis. Three wins, quarterback gone. Maybe Kafka should have stayed in the headset.

Since you want to get into the story....

Jones had his best season in 2022 with Kafka play calling. But in 2023, even though he only played 6 games he was having his worst ever. You forgot to mention that. That's why Daboll took over play calling duty. It wasn't just bad. It was awful those 6 games. The problems persisted with the backups.

First year is only somewhat telling. It's the second year thats even more telling, as every coach in the NFL has a full season of tape to watch the playcalling trends and audibles. Kafka struggled to adjust his offense for the counters that defenses presented in his 2nd year.

We just witnessed something similar with Slowik, who just got fired from Houston for it.