Football podcast.

There we go.

There we go.

Welcome back.

It's the big blue banter, New York Giants football podcast.

I'm Dan Schneard, joined live by my co-host, Nick Falado.

Double live, actually.

Double live.

Yeah.

I was in the area after a beautiful, beautiful first tea time out there early morning round with my buddies from New York.

Great round. We won match play nick

on whole 18 me and my boy evan rubin went into 18 all tied up match play friend john kursner 10

handicapped was giving me strokes i had one on 18 he was giving you strokes that's fun

strokes yeah you love that um and we won 18 not not a pretty 18. I'll say that. I doubled and I won because John doubled too, but I was getting a stroke. So it is what it is. The handicap system is what it is. But we're talking Giants football today. We're talking first free season game. We're back. I'm glad to be in the area. I came over here. We watched back some plays that we loved from the game. It was an exciting game. I think there's a lot of optimism around the Giants and some of the reasons were from some of the things we saw today. So I'll start with you, Nick. I think the first talking point for me, at least, is going to be not what people are expecting here. And we'll get to Jackson Dart. We'll get to Bill Carter. For me, and I have this in my notes, and I wrote it down and I circled it more than a few times. For me, I feel, and this dates back to what we saw in 2022 over the course of a season and then last season in 2024, I have a lot of respect for the way that Brian Davel sees an offense. And Jackson Dart talked about that this week in an interview. He said, I love working with Dable. It's the best coach I could have. He sees the field well. But I think Mike Kafka has a better feel for play calling. And I think it was obvious in this game. And I think it was obvious in 2022. When he calls those screens, the timing of those screen calls was really perfect in this game

and generated two first downs on third and longs that would have been punt situations for the

Giants. And I'm excited about this offense moving forward, not just with Jackson Dart and with

Russell Wilson, but with Mike Kafka at the helm, I think he calls a better game. I think it's a better

feel for what to call and when. He may. And even if he doesn't, it's just the operationally, it makes a lot more sense, right? Dan, to have your office coordinator call the plays and have your head coach focus on the entire ensemble, everything that is going on, the offense, the defense, time management, all that bullshit, right? And he can have his input and he can call some some situational plays if he wants to because guess what? He's the head coach. But that's not his primary focus. There's so much that goes into calling plays. I don't want my head coach to hyper focus on that. And then you have all of these other operational errors. Even if the Giants have this massive coaching staff, which we remember when Dave will came in, I think his second season, they started hiring a bunch of analytical guys, people who are in the box. I fully support that. That's all well and good. Look, John Merrick can put money into that, but I want my offensive coordinator to focus on just calling the plays and getting the best product out there from that perspective. And I think it's difficult to do that when you're the head coach because you have so much

other shit on your plate.

Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think generally speaking, we've seen some struggles with Daibow in his play, calling with Buffalo. And Bill's fans have talked about that. When it comes to Kafka, he's a few opportunities with Giants, really only 22. And I guess 2023 as well. But that was some injuries. and obviously the quarterback situation was a nightmare.

And even with Taylor and they've moved the offense,

but I just feel like he knows when to make the right calls. Those screen calls specifically really sit out to me. Let's move it back, though, to the beginning of the game. And let's talk about Russell Wilson and the first team offense. Or some of your takeaways from the first drive. I have a few that I wanted to go over here. Yeah, man, it was fun to watch them.

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