Assistant head coach/offensive coordinator Mike Kafka speaks to the media Thursday ahead of the Giants' Week 7 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles.
You obviously were here last year when you guys lost Andrew and you know what happened.
Over the next couple of weeks and how much of the absence that was. How much more prepared.
Do you think you are this year if you do to.
Handle a loss like that up front?
Well, first and foremost, you know that injuried at man, just feel for feel for him, you know, really wish him to really speed of recovery, sound like he was in good spirits. You know, we texted just before surgery, so you know, hurting for him cause that that sucks, but yeah, really it and it just goes you know, moving forward with the next guy up.
And you know, I think last.
Year, the year before that, when we dealt with injuries, regardless of the position, you know, you gotta have that next man up mentality, and that's why our coaches do such a great job getting our guys prepared.
Think Josh, he's a better player now than he was last year. Yeah, I mean it's one more year in the system.
He's grown, he's he certainly learned from those experiences and there was a lot of good there's things he can improve on, but you know, Josh is one of those guys that's came in every single day and sports his tail.
Off the last last days later, I guess about you know, Devin's status for the game everything. But if he does come back, I mean, it's kind of a different dynamic than he left, right because because of what the Tracy was able to do with these guys a.
Couple of weeks.
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to get into hypotheticals and whatever Davis wants to do with the roster and stuff.
But we have a great running back room, so we have full confidence whoever's out there.
I mean, Tyrone's earned snatch has has uh, Tyrone earned carries no matter if Devin.
Is back or not.
I I think Tyrone's done just capitalizing his opportunities, and so is depending on the game plan, depending on the week, depending on the flow of the game, how things are going, you know, that can determine a lot of things, whether get give him touches or not. But he's doing He's done a great job with his with his opportunities in the in the past game and the screen game and the running game, and.
So just you know, continue to build off. Sometimes when when a team uses two they like that there's a difference. You know, they need to change of pace. Do you see that if.
You guys use motor and tyrone that you know, we can give them different things to look at.
Yeah, I think the room's really diverse.
All of them have a you know, a nice, you know, unique skill set in the run game, pass game, pass protection.
They kind of all add something.
And and they're all looking to improve on each of those abilities, but they kind of they kind of balance each other out.
Why did you guys run some of the RPOs against Cincinnati.
Well, there is a little bit of a difference. There's some RPOs with their true zone like run pass options where you're reading the second level of defender, and then there's some more we just call like advantage throws where where you have free access you can take it. I think, you know, depending on the box count, you want to look at those things and if there's an opportunity versus a light box to run it, you try and run it. If it's a heavy box, then maybe there's an advantage throw on the perimeter that we can possibly take. But that's part of like our run game, and we try to do us a skill set of some you know, you know, it has the ability to utilize some of our receivers on the perimeter, you know the qbuter zone zone R game is another compliment to that as well.
So you want to have a diverse game play on the right game let's clicked on your screen games. That's been a problem around here for yeah, apreiating you for sure.
I think number one, our old line are doing a really good job of of getting to their landmarks and getting vertical. Our backs are being nice and patient, you know, with with setting those things up, and then our pass protection in our pass game has helped that too. So I think those three things combined have really helped it and the win we call them, whether the first down or second down, you know, things that maybe defenses could be clued into that, So that's something we evaluated and looked at.
So there's a few things that go into it.
But overall, it's been a really good job of execution by the guys up front of the old line, the receivers, the backs, the timing with the quarterback and when to free throw it over the top of or dart it.
So it's been just good execution.
Your guys are your team is among the league leaders in drops. Is that just they have to concentrate more or is it hands you know that they.
Not have good enough fans of the UN's what do you see.
I don't think that's the case. You know, it's it's a combination of things. It could be you know, separation, it could be protection, it could be ball placement, it could be just be lack of concentration. So you know, there's there's a bunch of things that go into it.
Each play. Is this a little bit different, but we always.
You know, go back to our fundamentals and how how can we improve that in an individual drill, in a group setting, in a team.
Drill, and a live drill, fast drill.
So you know, we kind of go through that that that.
Process is you know the league. You know there are stats for drops. Do you do you.
Internally as an offense to keep your own stats like, well, that wasn't a drop or no, that is a drop?
You know, and you know you have a hard marker with that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's all like for us, we will look at and all right, that was a tough, tough catch, like we need to have a better ball placement or we need to catch that at the end of the day, you know, we got to make sure the balls are our possession. We don't want drops regardless of where the ball's at. Well, we got to make sure we, you know, throw an accurate football. But it's not just like those two things like exclusively. It's a combination of things. It could be was the quarterback affected by a rush we had to move and now his launch point and his throw is a little bit off, off target and off rhythm.
So it's a combination of things. But we had to clean it up.
A believer that you know, some guys say if the ball touches their hand, they can't catch it.
I mean, I'm not like one hundred percent, because there's there's plenty of examples I can think of where like and are just cycling through my head right now, where and I know as a quarterback, like you want to give them the best ball where they can catch it and get yards after the catch. Like that's the key on some of those short intermediate throws where it's higher completion percentage, the ones downfield, you know you're throwing it with a little bit more air to try to give them opportunity to run underneath it, they're adjusting, they have a dB on their back, so there's there's a lot of things that can into it. But you know, just being being more precise in the past game that's going to be a detailed will stress to the.
End of time.
I would think as a quarterback and as an offensive coordinator you might have different standards on.
What's a drop is not a draw, right, Yeah, I mean we can debate it, you know, in our meetings all the time with the players in the quarterbacks. So yeah, I mean we just we just keep on keep on working line, and we'll improve on