Brian Daboll’s Giants play-calling experiment officially begins

It is not novel or new in the industry, but it will be novel and new for Brian Daboll in his time with the Giants.

Head coaches calling the plays on offense on game days is a way of life in the NFL.

Andy Reid, the league’s most successful head coach (with Bill Belichick out of the action, for now) has been doing it throughout his long career and is looking to win a third consecutive Super Bowl with the Chiefs. Kyle Shanahan of the 49ers does it, and that operation runs smoothly from top to bottom. Sean McVay is a Super Bowl-winning head coach with the Rams and also the play-caller.

It happens nearly everywhere but not with the Giants the past two seasons.

Daboll was hired in 2022, and as a first-time head coach, he decided it was best for him to concentrate on running the entire show and delegated the play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Mike Kafka.

Some of those roles were altered down the stretch in 2023, and thus far this spring and summer, Daboll exclusively has called the plays.

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He did so this week during the two joint practices with the Lions, and he did so Thursday night in the preseason opener against the Lions at MetLife Stadium.

“That’s what these preseason games are for,” Daboll said. “Go through that process. I think every team we play this year that has an offensive head coach, besides one, they call the plays. I’ve talked to plenty of people. I just want to go through the process of the preseason, the mechanics of it, the communication with my staff, really in all three phases, plus the people that help me with game management. So that’s much needed.”

There is every reason to believe Daboll on Sept. 8 will don the headset and call the plays into starting quarterback Daniel Jones in the Giants’ season opener against the Vikings.

It is not that any of this is new to Daboll , other than the fact this time, in addition to serving as the play-caller on offense, he is also the head coach.

Daboll rose through the ranks of the NFL coaching hierarchy — and one season winning a national championship at Alabama — based in large part on his ability to design an offense and to call the plays for that offense.

His best NFL work came during a four-year span in Buffalo, helping Josh Allen develop into an upper-echelon quarterback while orchestrating one of the league’s top attacks.

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Daboll after the 2020 season was named the AP’s NFL Assistant Coach of the Year, as Allen finished second in the voting for the Most Valuable Player award.

In 2021, the Bills were third in the NFL in scoring at 28.4 points per game, and a year later, Daboll was leading the Giants as their head coach.

He hired Kafka as the offensive coordinator, even though the two never worked together previously. Daboll was impressed with how Kafka developed in Kansas City, working for Reid, and handed the play-calling job to Kafka, even though Kafka — a former NFL backup quarterback — never before called plays at any level.

Kafka and Jones bonded in 2022, and the Giants won nine games and then won another in the playoffs, with Jones throwing only 15 touchdown passes but also registering the lowest interception percentage in the league.

In 2023, Jones played in only six games before a torn ACL ended his season, and the Giants ended up using three different starting quarterbacks.

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Stud left tackle Andrew Thomas strained a hamstring in the season opener and missed the next seven games, sending the offensive line into shambles.

The offense stumbled and bumbled its way to scoring only 15.6 points per game — only the Panthers and Patriots were worse — and down the stretch, Daboll took over some of the play-calling in a lost season .

It has been all Daboll as the play-caller as the Giants turned to 2024. Kafka remains the offensive coordinator, and Daboll said Kafka will again be up in the booth during games but not calling the plays.

Daboll spoke with peers he respects to gauge the difficulty of balancing play-calling with all the other responsibilities a head coach carries on game days.

“I talked to them about how they manage the game, manage the defense when they’re talking to the offense, the kicking game, the decisions,” Daboll said. “But it’s very similar to how we’ve done it, other than you’re communicating to the quarterback during the offensive series. I have a great staff that you rely on in between series so you can communicate, stay on the line, when the defense is on the line. Be able to communicate with special teams with situations that come up.”

Daboll explained that he has a separate communication line “with the two guys that help me” on game days, naming Ty Siam (the director of football data & information) and Cade Knox (the offensive assistant/game manager). This summer was all about working to perfect the system of communication.

“That’s what this is for,” Daboll said. “A little bit of trial and error, just to see how it goes here for the preseason, but I feel confident in it.”

In training camp, Daboll called for more deep shots in the passing game. Perhaps that is a precursor of things to come.

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