Getty New York Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2020.
After a relatively quiet Black Monday around the league on January 9, NFL head coaching searches are officially underway.
One popular name could be former Kansas City Chiefs quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka, who took on the New York Giants offensive coordinator role in 2022 and helped lead the storied NFC franchise back to the playoffs.
We should hear Kafka’s name pop up in head coaching conversations over the next several weeks and that trend began on January 10. NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero reported: “The [Carolina] Panthers requested an interview with Giants OC Mike Kafka for their head coaching job, per source.”
Insider: Mike Kafka ‘Is Definitely on His Way’
After the news surfaced, fellow NFL Network insider Mike Garafolo gave his take on the interview request from Carolina.
“Did a terrific job this season with a Giants offense that played well above its talent level,” he tweted. “Got Daniel Jones on track and helped Saquon Barkley to a career-high 1,312 rushing yards. Maybe he won’t get a HC job this year but Kafka is definitely on his way.”
Whether it happens in 2023 or sometime after that, Kafka does appear to display the traits of a coveted NFL head coaching candidate. It’s become an offensive sport with a quarterback-driven backbone and Andy Reid’s latest success story profiles as another QB whisperer that can help a struggling franchise figure out the most important position on the field.
Just look at some of the recent Super Bowl contenders and their head coaches. There’s Reid, of course, as well as Sean McVay (Los Angeles Rams), Zac Taylor (Cincinnati Bengals), Kyle Shanahan (San Francisco 49ers) and the recently retired Bruce Arians (Tampa Bay Buccaneers). All of these NFL leaders started on the offensive side of the ball and a few of them have a background working with quarterbacks.
The best example of a Kafka-type rise is Taylor in Cincy. It doesn’t always work, but the Bengals targeted a young quarterback/offensive guru and then drafted their signal-caller of the future in Joe Burrow. Allowing the pair to grow together has worked brilliantly, despite a rocky start for Taylor, and a team like the Panthers is starving for a hit at both QB and HC.
This season alone, Carolina started three different quarterbacks and saw a fourth — Jacob Eason — appear in a game. That doesn’t even include injured prospect Matt Corral, who the Panthers traded up to select in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft.
Before Corral entered the scene, Carolina also made trades for Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield in recent offseasons. The latter is already gone to Los Angeles while Darnold is set to hit free agency in 2023.
Needless to say, it’s been a rough quarterback search for the Panthers since the days of Cam Newton. Perhaps Kafka can help with that.
Andy Reid Coaching Tree Continues to Thrive
The Chiefs have become the most recent model of excellence around the sport, with appearances in four straight AFC championship games. A lot of that is certainly a credit to superstar Patrick Mahomes II, but football all starts with coaching and there’s no question that many organizations are trying their best to tap Reid and his pipeline of assistants.
That “coaching tree” includes current HCs like John Harbaugh, Doug Pederson, Sean McDermott, Ron Rivera, and Todd Bowles as well as recent hires like Matt Nagy and Pat Shurmur that didn’t work out. Steve Spagnuolo and Leslie Frazier are two more Reid disciples that returned to the defensive side of the ball.
Along with offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who has circled head coaching vacancies for years, Kafka could be the next in a long and successful line of hires that stems from Big Red. So long as the veteran shot caller remains at the helm in Kansas City, the Chiefs should be well-positioned to challenge for another Lombardi.