We’ve got movement in the New Orleans Saints head coach search. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reports that New York Giants offensive coordinator and assistant head coach Mike Kafka is flying in to New Orleans for a second interview with the Saints, this time in person (per NFL rules).
So why are the Saints so high on a high-level assistant from one of the worst teams in the league? You have to look beyond the results of his Giants tenure to see why they’re so high on Andy Reid’s former quarterback coach.
Kafka quickly rose through the ranks on the Kansas City Chiefs and won a lot of respect around the league for his work with Patrick Mahomes, who was initially seen as a raw prospect from a smaller program at Texas Tech. Clearly the Chiefs valued him by making up new job titles to keep him in town. Look at his time in Kansas City:
- 2017: Offensive quality control coach (Mahomes’ rookie year)
- 2018 to 2019: Quarterbacks coach
- 2020 to 2021: QB coach and passing game coordinator
The rest is history. And that put Kafka on the radar of multiple teams. He called plays for the Giants in 2022, which included their only playoff win since 2011, before prickly head coach Brian Daboll took the headset for himself in 2023 and 2024.
And this isn’t the first time Kafka has gotten a callback from a team looking for a head coach. He interviewed twice in 2023 with the Houston Texans (who hired DeMeco Ryans instead) and Arizona Cardinals last year (who went with Jonathan Gannon). He likely wants to get out from Daboll’s thumb in New York, and he’s got a stronger resume than you’d think if you just look at the last couple Giants seasons. Maybe the Saints are on to something here.
