The Michigan Wolverines are closing a deal to hire the former Giants defensive coordinator to take over the same post with the reigning national champions, according to a source.

Martindale, 60, is a home run hire for new Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore.

His Baltimore Ravens defenses ranked second, third and second in scoring, respectively, from 2018 through 2020. The Ravens won the AFC North twice in that span and went to the playoffs all three years.

His 2022 Giants defense paced the team’s 6-1 start and the franchise’s first playoff berth since 2016 with significant improvements on third down (from No. 16 in the NFL to No. 5) and in the red zone (from No. 9 to No. 5).

His 2023 Giants defense tied for the NFL lead in takeaways (31) and scored three touchdowns on pick-sixes. That included 11 takeaways in a three-game span from Weeks 11-14 to pace a three-game winning streak that prevented the bottom from falling out on a 2-8 start.

Martindale is also the only NFC defensive coordinator ever to beat Ravens two-time MVP Lamar Jackson (20-1) in Jackson’s 21 games against teams from that conference. His Giants forced two fourth quarter takeaways to beat Baltimore, 24-20, in Week 6 of the 2022 season.

He was a free agent after resigning from the Giants in early January. He is one of eight Giants coaches in the past month who either got fired or voluntarily left Brian Daboll’s staff.

Former Giants special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey, who was fired after the season, just landed as Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ new special teams coordinator, as well.

Martindale brings an NFL pedigree and a familiar scheme to Moore’s Wolverines.

Recent Michigan defensive coordinators Mike McDonald (Seattle Seahawks head coach) and Jesse Minter (L.A. Chargers defensive coordinator) both worked on Martindale’s Ravens defensive staff under Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh before flexing their play-calling muscles in Ann Arbor, Mich.

So Martindale’s blitz-heavy, man-to-man scheme will give Moore’s Michigan players and program some consistency on that side of the ball.

McDonald and Minter both worked for Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, at Michigan. Jim Harbaugh led the Wolverines to a national championship this past season, got hired as the Chargers’ new head coach and took Minter with him.

Martindale, interestingly enough, was born in Dayton, Ohio, and now will coach against the Ohio State Buckeyes in one of college football’s greatest rivalries.

It was surprising that Martindale did not land one of the NFL’s defensive coordinator vacancies with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys among the intriguing openings.

But joining Michigan puts him in a prominent position to win football games in the national spotlight and make a long run in college or an eventual return to the pros.

The Giants quarterback told the Daily News Friday on Super Bowl Radio Row that he has started running on an anti-gravity treadmill at the team’s facility as he rehabilitates his surgically repaired right ACL.

“My rehab is going well,” Jones, 26, said as he strolled. “I’m making progress. I’m three months into it, and I’ve started running on the anti-gravity treadmill. It’s going well.”

Jones said he has been working with head athletic trainer Ronnie Barnes, director of rehabilitation Leigh Weiss and assistant athletic trainer Phil Buzzerio.

“It’s coming along well,” he said.

Jones has said before that he intends to be ready for training camp. GM Joe Schoen said at the Senior Bowl that “the expectation is for him to be the starter when he’s healthy going into camp.”

When Jones got hurt last season, the Giants started Tyrod Taylor. Then they put Tommy DeVito in when Taylor got hurt, and even played DeVito for two extra games when Taylor got healthy.

Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton told Jones on Friday, though, that the Giants actually tried to recruit Broncos quarterback Davis Webb back to play for them when Jones got hurt.

“When you got hurt this year, Davis got a call about, ‘Can you come back to play?’” Payton told Jones and Eli Manning on The Up And Adams Show. And I’m like, ‘Davis, you took this job, you’re coaching.’ And then there’s some rule in our league that if you sign a coaching contract for that year, you cannot play. Anyway, I thought I was gonna lose our quarterback coach to the Giants.”

Fast forward to 2024, and Jones faces pressure to perform in the second season of his four-year contract. The Giants can financially escape the deal after the season if they wish.

Schoen holds the No. 6 overall pick and two second-round picks in April’s NFL Draft and admitted the quarterback position is under consideration. He could sign a veteran behind Jones or draft a rookie to develop behind him as his successor or eventual replacement.

The GM also needs to improve the offensive line to give his quarterback the best chance to succeed while carrying a $47 million salary cap hit this coming season.

Jones has sustained two significant neck injuries during his career on top of the torn ACL, too. And he did not appear to be throwing the ball comfortably against the Raiders prior to hurting his knee. So there are lots of questions.

But it’s positive that his rehab has progressed to running, which puts him on track to be on the field to make a strong case.

Giants head coach Brian Daboll has a comfort level with that, having worked 11 seasons for Belichick in New England, three with Pees and six with Vrabel as a player.

Bowen’s zone-heavy, 3-4 scheme places an emphasis on playing fast and downhill, and being physical at the point of attack, with a concentration on stopping the run. He is known for some creative pressures, too.

“Shane’s a good coach,” one NFL coordinator said. “He runs some good blitz packages.”

Run defense was an area that Giants co-owner John Mara and GM Joe Schoen prioritized in free agency last year to no avail. The Giants’ defense allowed 4.7 yards per carry and 24 rushing touchdowns last season, per NFL Next Gen Stats.

The Titans’ defense, meanwhile, allowed only 3.8 yards per carry and 10 rushing TDs. Tennessee, in fact, has allowed the fewest rushing yards in the NFL (89.7 per game) the past three seasons.

So if Bowen does nothing else in 2024, he is expected to help the Giants stop the run.

The offense would help that effort by scoring more points. Opponents weren’t forced into many obvious passing situations against the Giants defense last season because Daboll’s team was typically playing from behind.

Improving the roster would help, too. Schoen needs to reinforce the line around Dexter Lawrence, find an outside linebacker who sets the edge, bolster his inside linebacker depth and add a couple corners who are both willing and sound tacklers (It’s a long list, for sure).

That’s part of what happened to help Bowen’s Titans defense improve from 2020 to 2021.

In 2020, Bowen’s first season as the Titans’ play-caller, Tennessee’s defense allowed 27.4 points per game, 4.5 yards per carry and 18 rushing TDs. They also surrendered an NFL record 51.9% third-down conversion rate and tied for the fewest sacks ever by a playoff team (19).

But Bowen simplified his terminology and pre-snap reads that offseason, when Vrabel officially elevated him from outside linebackers coach to defensive coordinator in title. Tennessee’s talent improved, led by the free agent signing of end Denico Autry.

And Bowen’s 2021 Titans defense allowed only 20.8 points per game, 3.9 yards per carry and 14 rushing TDs. Harold Landry, Jeffrey Simmons and Kevin Byard all made the Pro Bowl, and Byard was voted first-team All-Pro.

That set the foundation for a consistently strong run defense three years running. And in 2023, Tennessee had the NFL’s No. 1 red-zone scoring defense (37.7% of drives ended in a TD), goal-to-go scoring (42.9%) and third-down conversion rate in the red zone (23.4%).

That said, there could be a major drop-off in takeaways by the Giants defense in the transition from Wink Martindale’s man-to-man heavy scheme to Bowen’s zone-based system in 2024.

Martindale’s Giants had 31 takeaways and scored three touchdowns in 2023, compared to 14 takeaways and one touchdown by Bowen’s Titans defense.

Martindale’s defense had almost as many interceptions (17) as passing touchdowns allowed (21), and quarterbacks posted a 84.1 rating against them.

Bowen’s Titans defense allowed 20 passing TDs, recorded only six interceptions and allowed a 96.4 QB rating. And the Titans finished in last place in the AFC South, one of the worst divisions in football, which prompted Vrabel’s firing and the staff-wide changeover.

The Titans did hold opponents to 21.6 points per game, though, more than two points less on average than the Giants (23.9). And sources say Bowen has creative ways to get to the quarterback.

He likes to use odd fronts to confuse the offense, spread out the offensive line and create one-on-one mismatches when it’s time to make a splash play. He also simulates pressures and sends different players while dropping guys in coverage.

Not that the pressures will be anything as exotic, varied or consistent as Martindale’s, whose system once had the Baltimore Ravens defense ranked second, third and second in scoring from 2018-20, respectively.

But the Titans defense had a higher QB pressure percentage (34.9%) than the Giants (31.4%) in 2023 — and a higher sack percentage, at 6.9% to the Giants’ 5.4% — despite Tennessee blitzing less than half as frequently (22.6% blitz rate to the Giants’ 49.2%), per NFL Next Gen Stats.

Again, personnel matters. It remains to be seen whether Bowen’s blitz rate will increase if he needs it to create pressure with his new Giants defensive roster.

Bowen, to be sure, does not compare to Martindale in experience, pedigree or in how much control he has had of his defense. Vrabel was involved on that side of the ball in Tennessee, while Martindale is more of a defensive head coach.

There were other candidates ahead of Bowen in this search before they chose other destinations, as well.

The primary difference between Bowen’s defense and Martindale’s systems, though, is that Bowen plays a lot more zone and a lot less man-to-man.

Martindale’s Giants defense played 45% of their 2023 passing-down snaps in man-to-man and 55% in zone. Bowen’s Titans played 28.4% of their passing-down snaps in man and 71.6% in zone.

Interestingly, the amount of zone Bowen plays is actually similar to what former Giants defensive coordinator Pat Graham did in 2020 and 2021 under Joe Judge. The Giants were in zone 74.5% of the time in 2020 and 73.2% of the time in 2021.

Martindale’s Giants defenses in 2022-23 were notably better in two-minute situations (15th in expected points added against per play) than Graham’s Giants in 2020-21 (21st) and Bowen’s Titans in 2020-23 (25th), per Pro Football Focus.

So that could be an area to watch for a Giants slide in 2024.

Graham’s system has roots with Belichick, too. He coached in New England for seven years, three of them with Daboll.

Daboll tried to keep Graham on staff when he got the Giants job in 2022, but Graham bolted for Las Vegas, where he is now Antonio Pierce’s defensive coordinator entering 2024.

So two years later, Daboll has hired someone who runs a scheme he is more familiar and comfortable with, entering a pivotal season for the future of this Giants regime.

Bowen’s defense can’t just be familiar, however. It has to be an improvement. Stopping the run would be a good start.

Secondary coach Jerome Henderson (defensive passing game coordinator) and quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney (offensive passing game coordinator) had new titles added to their resumes, as well.

The team called the three new titles “promotions,” which implies pay increases, as the Giants try to smooth over the optics of having eight coaches leave Brian Daboll’s staff or get fired in the past month.

Tight ends coach Andy Bischoff became the latest to depart this week for a lateral move with the Los Angeles Chargers as Jim Harbaugh’s new tight ends coach/run game coordinator.

Kafka is being “promoted” after the Giants offense averaged 15.6 points per game last season, which ranked 30th in the NFL. He had offensive meetings and play-calling both stripped from him by Daboll during the year.

The Giants then blocked Kafka’s interview for the Seattle Seahawks’ offensive coordinator vacancy to prevent the optics of having all three coordinator positions turnover, given defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s resignation and special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey’s firing.

So now they have sweetened the pot in return, even though there is a good chance Kafka will have play-calling taken away from him permanently in 2024.

GM Joe Schoen and Daboll hired two new assistants on Wednesday, as well: outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen and defensive assistant Zak Kuhr.

Bullen and Schoen both worked for the Dolphins from 2012-16. Bullen coached with the Arizona Cardinals from 2019-22, then worked as the University of Illinois’ outside linebackers coach and pass rush coordinator in college last season.

Kuhr just spent his first four NFL seasons with the Tennessee Titans, including the last three as an inside linebackers assistant. He is the third former Mike Vrabel Titans assistant to join the Giants’ coaching staff this week.

Former Titans defensive coordinator Shane Bowen now has the same title with the Giants. And former Titans offensive coordinator Tim Kelly is Daboll’s new tight ends coach.

Kelly, 37, replaces Andy Bischoff, who left in a lateral move to the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday. Kelly is the second former Mike Vrabel Titans coordinator to join the Giants in the last two days.

Former Titans defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, 37, was tabbed on Monday as Daboll’s defensive coordinator replacement for Wink Martindale, who resigned in early January. That search took four weeks.

Vrabel, 48, is still a free agent after getting fired in Tennessee and not landing a head coaching job this cycle.

Bowen and Kelly both worked in Tennessee with Ryan Cowden, who is now the Giants’ executive advisor to GM Joe Schoen.

Cowden worked as the Titans’ director of player personnel (2016-17), VP of player personnel (2018-22) and interim GM (2022) before the organization hired Ran Carthon as their new full-time GM last year.

Kelly has worked for the Texans (2014-21) and Titans (2022-23), serving as offensive coordinator at times for both clubs. Tennessee was 27th in points scored and 28th in yards on offense last season while transitioning to rookie quarterback Will Levis.

At the moment, Daboll’s offensive staff features him as the head coach, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka — after being blocked from the Seattle Seahawks’ OC position — quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney, offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo (Raiders), wide receivers coach Mike Groh, running backs coach Joel Thomas (Saints) and the tight ends coach Kelly.

His expletive-laced Instagram Live rant before the AFC Championship Game, naturally, was directed at Giants fans instead.

“I would never attack the Chiefs, never said anything about the Chiefs,” Toney told CBS Sports Network at Super Bowl media night in Las Vegas. “Who I was referring to was the Giant fans, whoever the people were that were in my comment box, not even on my live recording, so you wouldn’t even know they were there. But I was referring to them, which I shouldn’t have.”

Toney, 25, a former Giants first-round pick, unleashed a disgusting tirade on Jan. 28 about being ruled out of the Chiefs’ win over the Baltimore Ravens.

“I’m not hurt, none of that sh-t. Save that sh-t. S— my d—, too,” Toney said. “Not hurt, none of that. It go[es] from hip to ankle to this to that.”

His comment obviously contended that the Chiefs’ injury report wasn’t accurate by listing a “hip” injury and personal reasons (he and his partner just had a baby).

But Toney is blaming his misstep on his ongoing feud with Giants fans, which has burned hot ever since Toney got traded to the Chiefs last fall and won a Super Bowl with Kansas City.

After a Week 1 loss to the Detroit Lions, Toney got dragged by Giants fans on social media for dropping three Patrick Mahomes passes, including one that the Lions returned for a touchdown.

“BREAKING: Kadarius Toney is expected to miss 6-9 weeks with ‘broken hands’ per source,” ‘X’ user Jordan Loupe @CantALoupe_FF wrote in a viral post.

So Toney fired back when the Giants lost their season opener 40-0 at home to the Dallas Cowboys.

“Na Don’t get quiet now,” Toney wrote on Instagram over a photo of Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley staring blankly on the bench as the Cowboys celebrated.

Toney also posted a photo of the Family Guy baby ‘Stewie’ in bed over the 40-0 final score with the caption: “Giants fans last night.”

The Chiefs receiver quickly seemed to realize his Instagram antics weren’t worth it, announcing the following day that he would be “back off this sh-t” so he could ignore future trolls.

But the frustrations of his disappointing season — headlined by an inexcusable offensive offsides penalty in a Week 14 loss to the Buffalo Bills — came out again in Toney’s AFC Championship game day rant.

Toney at least he owned up to his mistake.

“I just wanted to go out there … [and] get my message across as far as my injury, but I shouldn’t have [done] that,” he said. “At the end of the day I’m a man, and I can accept my mistakes just like I accept my wins. But I’m just moving past it right now. We’re here now. We’re trying to win.”

He also said that winning a second straight Super Bowl “means everything to me.” And given his heroics in last year’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, he can’t be ruled out as a wild card factor for Andy Reid’s team on Sunday in Las Vegas, either.

Toney couldn’t help but make a second headline, though, when asked if he’s a No. 1 receiver in the NFL.

“Yeah, if I get it — if I get the ball, yeah,” said Toney, whose talent is only superseded by the drama that seems to follow him wherever he goes.

Bowen, 37, has been in the NFL since 2016 and worked as Mike Vrabel’s coordinator for three seasons from 2021-23.

The Titans finished in last place in the AFC South this season. His defense ranked 16th in points and 18th in yards. Vrabel got fired and now is a free agent.

Bowen runs a 3-4 base defense which the Giants hope will help in the transition away from Wink Martindale, who resigned from the team in early January.

He’s expected to inherit incumbent coaches like Giants secondary coach Jerome Henderson and defensive line coach Andre Patterson.

The Giants’ DC search dragged on into February as multiple candidates chose other more stable situations with Brian Daboll under pressure entering year three.

The news broke just before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s state of the union at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. And it came on the heels of the Giants blocking OC Mike Kafka from interviewing for the Seahawks offensive coordinator job and letting tight ends coach Andy Bischoff out for a lateral move to the Chargers as TE coach/run game coordinator.

Bischoff’s departure marked the eighth coaching change from Daboll’s 2023 staff.

If they can take care of the world’s best ‘football’ players when they play in New Jersey, they can do what’s best for the world’s best American football players, too.

FIFA announced on Sunday that MetLife Stadium will host eight matches during the 2026 World Cup tournament, headlined by the World Cup Final on July 19.

The turf pitch will be converted to grass for the World Cup games to meet FIFA’s standards. That costs money.

The stadium is using $400,000 in funds from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority — which owns the lease on the stadium’s land — to turn the field to grass for this summer’s Copa America games, per The Athletic.

Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch, and Jets owner Woody Johnson, would have to foot a big bill to convert their surface to grass and maintain it.

But a slightly improved bottom line for billionaires and millionaires should not take priority over the safety of the players who bring those dollars in with their talents and hard work.

The NFL players’ union has called for all teams to switch permanently to grass in their stadiums, citing data that it makes the game safer. The league, naturally, occasionally finds its own selective data to push back.

Still, there is no regional argument for why a grass field couldn’t be maintained in New Jersey when the Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders all play on grass in the Northeast already.

If it saved even one ACL or Achilles, it would be worth it.

Mara, to his credit, said last March that he hopes to move to grass permanently one day at the Giants’ and Jets’ home stadium.

“It would have to go down for the World Cup,” Mara said last March of grass at MetLife. “My hope is that we can get to a day some point in the future that we can have a grass field that we’re able to maintain with two different teams and all the other events. I think we can get there at some point. Maybe it’s a hybrid product or something.”

The Giants and Jets installed a new “monofilament” turf at last offseason in response to harsh criticism from the union and players around the league, including some of their own, about their previous “slit film” turf’s connection to frequent player injuries.

Players were included in the conversations about which new turf the teams should install, and the change represented progress. But players have still complained.

Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud said after suffering a concussion in a road loss against the Jets that he “hit the back of my head” on the ground and it felt like “I damn near hit my head on cement, kind of. It was cold, and the turf I guess isn’t the best I’ve learned.”

At the old Giants Stadium, they once switched from the infamous AstroTurf to a grass tray system in 2000, but the field quality was still poor and that led to the installation of a different field turf in 2003.

More than 20 years have passed, though. There is a reason the best soccer players in the world play on grass only in the World Cup.

And frankly, when the NFL’s experts are traveling internationally for their collaborative summits with these international ‘football’ leagues and stadiums, they should be harnessing new knowledge on how to maintain grass back home as they do overseas.

The planned installation of grass for the 2026 World Cup is a reminder that they’ll put grass down in MetLife Stadium when provided with enough incentive.

So if they’ll do it for Kylian Mbappe, Kevin De Bruyne, Marcus Rashford and Jamal Musiala, they can do it for the Giants’ Dexter Lawrence, the Jets’ Garrett Wilson and the NFL’s players, too.

Tight ends coach Andy Bischoff is leaving the team to become Jim Harbaugh’s tight ends coach/run game coordinator with the Los Angeles Chargers, according to FootballScoop.

The Giants, who blocked offensive coordinator Mike Kafka from interviewing for the Seattle Seahawks’ OC job, let Bischoff out of his contract to make the lateral move to LA.

The veteran coach’s departure is only the latest in a string of firings and voluntary resignations and departures that demonstrate coaches’ desires to escape to greener pastures.

The Giants’ defensive coordinator search also has dragged on now for four weeks with multiple candidates choosing other, more stable situations instead until they hired former Tenessee Titans DC Shane Bowen on Monday.

Here are all the coaching changes – for now:

Post-2022 

1. DeAndre Smith, running backs – left in a lateral move to become Shane Steichen’s running backs coach with the Indianapolis Colts

2. Tony Sparano Jr., assistant offensive line – left for a promotion to offensive line coach with Steichen’s Colts

3. Nick Williams, special teams quality control – Giants parted ways with Williams in Feb. 2023

4. Anthony Blevins, assistant special teams – left in July 2023 to become head coach of the XFL’s Vegas Vipers

Post-2023

5. Jeff Nixon, running backs – left at end of regular season to become Syracuse’s new offensive coordinator/running backs coach

6. Craig Fitzgerald, head strength – left at end of regular season to become University of Florida’s director of strength and performance

7. Thomas McGaughey, special teams coordinator – fired on Jan. 8

8. Bobby Johnson, offensive line – fired on Jan. 8

9. Drew Wilkins, outside linebackers – fired on Jan. 8

10. Kevin Wilkins, defensive assistant – fired on Jan. 8

11. Wink Martindale, defensive coordinator – resigned from the team in January

12. Bischoff, tight ends – left this week to join Harbaugh’s Chargers as tight ends coach/run game coordinator

If Kafka found a way out to Seattle, that would make all three coordinators leaving, nine coaching changes from 2023 alone and 13 total in two years. That reinforces why the Giants would block his departure for optics reasons even though it isn’t best for him.

Losing Kafka in a lateral move to the Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator position would turn over all three coordinator spots on Brian Daboll’s Giants staff.

It would confirm at least two of them wanted out and create no difficult guess about how the third felt before he was fired, for those who still need help figuring this out.

All while the Giants’ search for a new defensive coordinator drags on interminably, with numerous candidates choosing more stable situations over theirs.

Losing Kafka, therefore, would label this officially as an East Rutherford Exodus. And the Giants have to maintain the appearance of pretending everything is better than has been revealed.

See, the NFL is an optics-driven league. If given the choice between looking better in the short term and performing better in the long term, teams typically will prioritize how they look in the mirror.

Look no further than the Jets rooting around for leaks in their building late this season rather than actually addressing the problems that undercut their operation.

It’s conscious shortsightedness rooted in self-preservation and an obsession with controlling a public narrative that does not matter if the team simply wins games.

The Giants quickly blocked the Seahawks’ request to interview Kafka for their offensive coordinator position this week, sources said, preventing a sure departure had they allowed it to go through.

Think about it: the Seahawks interviewed Kafka twice for their head coaching vacancy.

Their request to interview him for their offensive coordinator position demonstrated two obvious realities from their conversations with him: 1) they have a high opinion of Kafka and 2) they think he’d take their OC job if it were offered to him.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Kafka just survived a second season in which he was frequently reamed out, constantly second-guessed, marginalized and connected to one of the worst offenses in football.

Daboll took play-calling away from Kafka multiple times, giving it to QB coach Shea Tierney for the second half in Dallas in Week 10. And Daboll took the offensive meetings away from Kafka for Weeks 7-10.

Kafka, 36, is on track to be a head coach one day and needs to be in a supportive situation, not a hostile environment. But consider this:

The Giants could be blocking him from Seattle and retaining him only to strip play-calling away from him altogether.

How would that be fair? And honestly, how would that make sense for Daboll?

If Daboll takes over play-calling in 2024, it would be the logical move, frankly. He is on the hot seat entering year three, and if he’s going to push all his chips into the table, he might as well go all-out with what he does best.

Maybe it would save him and turn this around. But if not, at least Daboll wouldn’t have to say ‘what if?’ You could fill entire buildings with NFL coaches who have taken too much advice, delegated away their greatest skills and rued their failure to just lean on their strengths.

Not to mention that Tierney is a trusted Daboll loyalist who the head coach already jumped Kafka for in a regular season game. Clearly, the head coach wouldn’t mind having Tierney as his right-hand man.

GM Joe Schoen and Daboll could try to do right by Kafka while retaining him, of course. They could promise to keep play-calling in his hands and sweeten his contract and vow that his Giant experience will get less unpredictable and miserable.

Or they could stop managing the optics long enough to be reasonable about Kafka’s career.

Keeping him because it looks better won’t save Schoen, Daboll or the Giants. Only winning more games will.