Giants’ OC Mike Kafka considered top candidate for Northwestern head-coaching job

New York Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka is at the top of the list of potential replacements for Pat Fitzgerald, fired this week as head football coach at Northwestern due to an alleged hazing scandal.

In a look at potential candidates for the Northwestern job, Bruce Feldman of The Athletic writes:

The dream candidate for the school probably would be Kafka, a 35-year-old former Wildcat QB who grew up in Chicago and has risen fast up the NFL ranks. Northwestern has been terrible on offense for awhile; Kafka seems like he could fix that pretty quickly, but he’s not far from becoming an NFL head coach at this point. He interviewed for a bunch of jobs last winter, so why jump into the craziness of the college game at a place that just canned someone he learned under?

Kafka interviewed for four NFL head-coaching vacancies during the offseason. Having not been offered any of those jobs, Kafka appeared set for a second season as Giants offensive coordinator.

Perhaps, though, the opening at his alma mater could change that.

In an interview at mandatory minicamp, Kafka said he had moved on from those interviews.

“Don’t really think about it all that much outside of the experience, being fortunate enough to be a part of those discussions, those conversations, was really cool,” he said. “I learned a lot about myself. Learned a lot about the league and the multiple organizations.

“It was a good experience overall.”

Head coach Brian Daboll has been vocal about the value of keeping mostly intact a coaching staff that helped the Giants win a playoff game in 2022 after a surprisingly successful 9-7-1 season.

The Giants recently lost assistant special teams coach Dr. Anthony Blevins, who became head coach of the XFL’s Las Vegas Vipers.

Losing Kafka would be a much bigger blow, especially this close to the opening of training camp.