Arizona Cardinals to interview Mike Kafka for head coaching position

Jan 30, 2023 - 11:04 PM

The hunt for a new Arizona Cardinals head coach continues, as another name has been added to list.

This time, it is a young offensive coach in Mike Kafka.

Kafka has seen a meteoric rise in his coaching career after floating around in the league as a backup and camp/preseason arm as a quarterback.

Drafted in the fourth round of the 2010 NFL Draft, Kafka saw snaps in four games with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2011 with Andy Reid as his head coach.

After stops in Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Tennessee and Cincinnati he was out of the NFL after 2015.

In 2016 he was a graduate assistant at his alma mater Northwestern, before catching on with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2017 as offensive quality control coach. He was the Chiefs quarterbacks coach in 2018 and 2019, before taking over as quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator in 2020 and 2021. He was hired as the Giants offensive coordinator in 2022 and his rise through the coaching ranks can be seen as nothing short of impressive.

While his age of 36 wouldn’t be unheard of, trying to find someone who went through the ranks as quickly as Kafka is tough with DeMeco Ryans being the only peer if they both get head coaching jobs. Maybe Mike Vrabel, but he had three seasons in the college ranks as well. Maybe Kevin O'Connell who was in it seven years and had three years as an OC?

What would you think of Kafka?