Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid is losing another coaching staff member this offseason. Quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator Mike Kafka moves up the coaching ranks with the New York Giants as the team’s new offensive coordinator, as first reported by NFL insider Mike Garafolo.
Kafka, 34, began his NFL career playing for Andy Reid as a fourth-round draft pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2010. After bouncing around the league as a practice squad journeyman quarterback, Kafka hung up the cleats in 2015 and pursued coaching, starting as a grad assistant for Northwestern in 2016.
A year later, Kafka reunited with Reid in Kansas City and got a gig as the Chiefs’ offensive quality control coach and evenly got promoted to the team’s QBs coach in 2018. Kafka was speculated to be the next coach in line for the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator role once current OC Eric Bienemy was given the opportunity to be a head coach elsewhere. However, that opportunity has never presented itself despite several interviews over the last four seasons.
Kafka will serve as part of new-Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll’s coaching staff and is expected to make the offensive play-calls for New York in the upcoming season this fall. While in Kansas City, Reid has previously spoken high of his now-former QBs coach and gives him credit for Patrick Mahomes’ development which resulted in Mahomes ripping off a 5,000-yard, 50-touchdown season in his first year as a starter and a Super Bowl championship the following season.
“He spends a ton of time with those guys, the young guys,” said Reid back in May 2021. “He spends a ton of time with the quarterbacks, but that’s one of those positions that when you start fresh, in one case when you have a player that’s never called a play in the huddle or period since high school or college, he’s never had to get in the huddle and nail it down for the guys. It takes a ton of time, and Mike’s got the patience to do that, and I thought he did a tremendous job with those guys to get them. Plus, the more they know, the calmer they are. Doesn’t matter who’s around them. I’m not playing. I’m not the secondary. I’m not the linebackers, so get to know what you need to know, and let’s go. That’s a blessed room right there. They’ve got some good coaches in there.”
Reid now has two spots he’ll need to fill for his 2022 coaching staff; quarterbacks coach and linebackers coach, left by former Matt House, who left the Chiefs to become the defensive coordinator at Louisiana State University back in late December.
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