DETROIT — For his second game as the interim head coach, Mike Kafka will again not have Jaxson Dart as his starting quarterback.
For game No. 2 since taking over for fired Brian Daboll, Kafka will indeed have Shane Bowen as his defensive coordinator.
If there was ever a time to wheel out the “it is what it is” line, this is it.
With Dart, at least Kafka had a fighting chance to continue to advance the progress of the rookie quarterback down the stretch of another lost season.
Without him, Kafka for the second consecutive week must rely on veteran Jameis Winston to run the offense Kafka called with Daboll and now without him.
This means the Giants go into Ford Field to play the talented and desperate Lions without the one player who Giants fans want to see most of all.
Since taking over, Kafka has preached aggressiveness — on both sides of the ball.
He went for it four times on fourth down in his head-coaching debut, a 27-20 loss to the Packers.
The offense converted three times.
On defense, Kafka has urged Bowen to bring the heat more often.
The Giants were 2-8 this season with Daboll running the show and are 0-1 with Kafka as the replacement.
So much of that failure can be laid at the feet of a defense that prevented winning in close losses at Dallas, Denver and Chicago.
Not much can change if Bowen’s unit continues to play at a bottom-five level and show an abysmal aversion to holding onto leads.
The defense was at it again in Week 11.
Winston drove the Giants 85 yards in 15 plays and scored on a quarterback sneak to put his team ahead 20-19 with 7:22 remaining.
That was a great deal of time and the slimmest of leads, but a defense is allowed to finish the job.
The Packers had no trouble gaining 65 yards in just seven plays, with Jordan Love hitting Christian Watson for the game-winning touchdown with 4:02 to play.
Bowen blitzed nearly 43 percent of the time against the Packers — 17 percent higher than the season average.
Those blitzes were not very effective — players failed to win their individual matchups — and it remains to be seen if Bowen can design anything exotic to create any sort of havoc.
At least he was heeding Kafka’s call for aggression.
“Yeah, I mean, don’t hold anything back,” Bowen said of Kafka’s message. “Put these guys in positions to make plays. Understand, obviously, this week’s going to be played aggressively by their side of the football as well, just with what they’ve done on fourth downs. Understanding that, and something we look at every week, just how we’re able to attack.”
The final six games were supposed to provide another proving ground for Dart.
He will not get all these final six games, as he did not clear concussion protocol during the past week after getting diagnosed Nov. 9 in the 24-20 loss to the Bears.
Maybe he gets the final five — though he made the trip with the team and will be on the sideline Sunday.
This puts the defense under even more intense scrutiny.
Bowen will again not have his best cornerback, Paulson Adebo (knee), and one of his starting outside linebackers, Kayvon Thibodeaux (shoulder).
The Lions endured a stinker on offense last week in Philadelphia, losing to the Eagles 16-9, but they can light up the scoreboard, putting up 52 points on the Bears, 38 on the Ravens, 34 on the Browns, 37 on the Bengals and 44 on the Commanders.
Only the Colts, Cowboys and Seahawks average more than the Lions’ 29.2 points a game.
Kafka will call the plays in for Winston and hope for the best.
Kafka also will hope Bowen can get more out of a defense that has contributed far too little this season.
In order for Kafka to get serious consideration for the head-coach job in 2026, he needs far more than what he’s received from the Giants’ defense.
“A lot of the same things I saw when he was the offense coordinator, just from afar, bringing it in with the whole team, with the defensive unit involved now, the leadership,” Bowen said. “I think the attention to detail, how he’s adjusted some meetings, I think has been good for us, good for the guys, but he relates with all the players. Offense, defense, he wants to be involved, he wants to know what’s going on, so he can have those conversations with our guys as well and be able to hold them accountable to certain things. So, I think he’s doing a really good job, and hopefully we can get some wins here.”
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