Brian Daboll shares philosophy as Giants announce coaching staff

LOS ANGELES — The Giants formally announced a large portion of their coaching staff on Friday, including offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, defensive coordinator Don "Wink" Martindale and the return of special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey. Head coach Brian Daboll has never worked with any of his top three lieutenants.

"I’ve known them, but I wouldn’t say [we had] a relationship," Daboll said. "I’ve known them throughout the years just being in the league . . . What we were looking for was intelligence, good communicators, good teachers that understood and were experts in their respective areas, and good teammates."

The Giants also announced their offensive position staff, which will include quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney, offensive line coach Bobby Johnson, running backs coach DeAndre Smith, wide receivers coach Mike Groh and tight ends coach Andy Bischoff. They also announced Tony Sparano Jr. as the assistant offensive line coach and Andre Patterson as the defensive line coach.

"They’re all intelligent, dependable, good character, team-first people who are experts in their subject matter, can teach well and explain the details of their positions," Daboll said. "I think there’s an important part of developing a staff and bringing a staff together in terms of personality and fit, so we’re happy with the guys that we’ve hired to this point. I’d say we’ve taken our time making decisions and really being methodical with our approach. We weren’t going to rush anything. Just take each case day by day."

The staff thus far includes a wide range of experience levels. Unlike Joe Judge, who surrounded himself with former head coaches from college and the NFL, Daboll has no former head coaches on his staff. He does have two sons of former head coaches in Groh and Sparano.

"I think what you try to do when you’re putting together a staff, whether that be an offensive staff in a smaller form or the entire staff, you try to put together a group of people that will complement one another, whether that’s experience, whether that’s energy, whether that’s detail, whether that’s passion," Daboll said. "You don’t want to have a cookie-cutter approach and hire everybody that’s exactly the same. I think that you have to offset blind spots."

The Giants also formally confirmed the hiring of Laura Young as director of coaching operations, the first woman to work for the Giants on the coaching side and the second on the football side. Hannah Burnett was hired as the team’s first full-time female scout two years ago.

"She’ll have her hands all over the organization in terms of the coaching side," Daboll said of Young, who worked with him in Buffalo. "She’s with me every step of the way. She’s a rock star, really, and I feel very fortunate that I get to work with her each day because she provides just a tremendous amount of support and value to really everyone, but myself the most. She’s smart; there’s really not a job she can’t do and a job she won’t do. That’s her mindset. Very humble, egoless, but driven, smart. I just think she’s the best."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.