Mike Kafka‘s plan to unlock the Giants‘ downfield passing attack reflects the evolution of New York‘s offensive coordinator as a play caller to maximize the team’s new personnel.
Name the Giants’ new scheme ‘Screen ‘Em Deep.’
Kafka confirmed a well-known, inventive tendency this spring and summer season in his second stint sporting the headset:
He forces linebackers and safeties to run from sideline to sideline with horizontal receiver routes and passing ideas, then goals for an explosive play with misdirection or a shot excessive.
However there was a brand new emphasis in Kafka’s sport plans this preseason: a heavier-than-ever reliance on Large display passes close to the road of scrimmage throughout Brian Daboll’s regime (10.1% of passes focused, 4.7% to working backs, in response to NFL NextGen Stats.).
And it simply so occurred that this preseason, the Giants offense additionally threw the next proportion of vertical passes (21.7%) than they did in any of the previous three seasons. And New York scored extra factors (107) than some other crew within the NFL this August.
The preseason is a a lot smaller pattern dimension than a daily season, however the distinction is evening and day from Kafka’s first preseason calling performs in 2022: The Giants focused 7.0% display passes, zero screens to working backs and solely 7.1% vertical routes that summer season.
One purpose for the change is that the Giants have completely different gamers with some completely different talent units.
New quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Jaxson Dart appear more proficient at feathering display passes than Daniel Jones was. Wilson’s deep ball is the very best a part of his sport. Prime working again Tyrone Tracy Jr. is a transformed large receiver. Rookie draft decide Cam Skattebo has good arms.
And Malik Nabers’ catch and run capability may be second to none if he snags a brief completion in house.
It’s not nearly Kafka maximizing the Giants’ abilities, although. He’s particularly centered on placing particular defensive gamers into battle, forcing them into troublesome decisions or indecision that buys the offense a cut up second to spring one thing huge.
“When you’re building and constructing an offense, just in general, you want to force the defense to defend the whole entire width and depth of the field,” Kafka mentioned in August. “There might be completely different components of the run sport that may assault it. There might be completely different components of the move sport, screens, motions, vertical, ranges kind performs that may get that achieved.
“So you’re looking at not only the space and spots on the field, you’re looking at the people that are in those spots,” the offensive coordinator mentioned. “Maybe we want to attack a linebacker or a certain flat defender, maybe you want to attack a certain safety’s leverage, and how do you get that done based off of a certain action that may get that to influence that particular player.”
The rise of the display move within the Giants’ offense has been regular the previous 4 years to assist accomplish these targets, whether or not Kafka or Daboll has been the first play caller.
In 2022, with Kafka because the lone play caller, they focused the 5.6% of screens and 1.7% working again screens. In 2023, when Kafka, Daboll and quarterback Shea Tierney all acquired turns calling performs, the display proportion rose to eight.1% with 2.7% going to working backs.
Even final 12 months, in Daboll’s one season because the Giants’ full-time play caller, it continued to extend: the Giants focused 9.5% of display routes, together with 3.6% to working backs.
So the preseason numbers of 10.1% screens and 4.7% screens to working backs might be only a fleeting three-game exhibition experiment.
Nevertheless it definitely seems to be like a concerted effort to attract the protection all the way down to the road of scrimmage, create misdirection and push defenders large and in tight — all with a watch on making an attempt to finally get excessive.
After the Giants solely focused 7.1% of their passes vertically in 2022, they elevated it to 17.2% in 2023, held it at 14.7% for 2024. And now it’s all the best way as much as 21.7% this preseason.
“You’re thinking of the space, you’re thinking of putting stress on certain players, flat defenders, high-lows on backers, the width and depth of safeties, and then you start putting the people in those spots to do that with their strengths,” Kafka mentioned. “It could be a speed receiver, it could be a bigger body on a matchup on a smaller body on defense. It could be quick motions and expanding the width to put that player in different stresses in terms of a run fit or a pass fit. That’s what we look at.”
Kafka carries Andy Reid’s Eagles and Chiefs offenses in his DNA as a former participant and assistant to the long run Corridor of Famer. Reid’s Chiefs focused 12.8% of their routes on screens in 2024, principally to large receivers, with 2.5% going to backs.
The Steelers, for whom Wilson began 11 video games final season, focused solely 6.6% of routes on screens together with a minimal 1.0% to backs.
In some ways, although, Kafka’s display sport seems like an extension of his emphasis on designed quarterback runs.
In 2022 with Kafka as full-time play caller, Jones averaged 7.6 carries per sport for the Giants, a full carry greater than his 6.6 common in 2023 and 2024 mixed with Daboll extra concerned.
That was a key tactic the Giants used to achieve first downs and draw defenses inside to then scheme Saquon Barkley off the perimeters and into house.
Wilson is just not as cellular as Jones, however Kafka has proven a ton of designed quarterback runs anyway for each Wilson and Dart all through camp.
The last word objective, after all, is to attain extra factors. Much more. The Giants deteriorated from averaging 21.5 factors per sport in 2022 to fifteen.6 in 2023 and 16.1 in 2024.
The easiest way to try this is to create explosive performs, to unlock Nabers, Darius Slayton and possibly even Jalin Hyatt and Beaux Collins deep down the sector. Collins, the undrafted rookie, acquired a style of catching one among Wilson’s bombs within the preseason.
It’s not so simple as simply working these performs and chucking the ball up within the air, although. It requires a plan that forces defenses to fret about all of the areas of the sector simply as a lot.
To date, right here in 2025, it looks like the Giants intend to display ’em deep. To attract them in and strike.
SAQUON NO. 1, DART NO. 2
Barkley, the Eagles’ star working again, was voted the very best participant in your complete NFL by his friends for the NFL Community’s annual Prime 100 checklist after leaving New York and spending one Tremendous Bowl season in Philadelphia … Dart, the Giants’ rookie, is now listed because the No. 2 QB on the Giants’ depth chart for his or her Week 1 opener at Washington. Dart has been the Giants’ 1b. quarterback in video games and practices for weeks. That is only a paper change from the crew’s preliminary “unofficial” preseason depth chart that had listed Jameis Winston quickly because the No. 2 and Dart because the No. 3, regardless of Dart receiving extra snaps and taking part in time and working the first-team offense in video games.
Initially Printed: September 2, 2025 at 2:23 PM EDT
