On Monday, Brian Daboll became the second NFL head coach to be fired this season after the New York Giants relieved him of his duties after 61 games in charge of the team. The 2025 season has been an utter disaster for the Giants, who are just 2-8 and have seen promising rookie running back Cam Skattebo and second-year wide receiver Malik Nabers suffer season-ending injuries. New York has some promising building blocks in rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart, Skattebo, and Nabers, but Giants owner John Mara evidently didn’t see Daboll as the best fit to usher his team into the future.
Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will serve as New York’s interim head coach for the rest of the season, but he has just the fifth-best odds to be named the Giants’ next permanent head coach. Instead, former Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys boss Mike McCarthy is a +700 favorite, with former New England Patriots coach (and current North Carolina coach) Bill Belichick (+750) right behind.
Giants’ Next Head Coach Odds at DraftKings Sportsbook
Belichick has been the biggest mover since the market was first opened: he opened with +1600 odds. Despite the movement, though, the public isn’t sold; he’s attracted just 2% of the bets and 4% of the handle. Instead, the public has been far more confident in former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden (+800), who’s known for his ability to develop quarterbacks, and Kafka (+900), for whom the final seven games of the season will serve as an audition. It’s worth noting that none of the three teams who fired their head coach during the 2024 regular season went on to hire the interim boss.
Unlike McCarthy and Gruden, Belichick currently works as a head coach, but his tenure at North Carolina has been rocky. This season, the Tar Heels have gone just 4-5 and have taken plenty of lopsided results, including a 48-14 loss to TCU and a 38-10 loss to Clemson. While UNC has rebounded with wins in back-to-back weeks over Syracuse and Stanford, its bowl hopes are more or less nonexistent, and Belichick has been surrounded by speculation regarding a return to the NFL all season. For his part, Belichick has pushed back against any links to New York so far.
The 73-year-old currently sits third on the all-time coaching wins list with 302 and would need 27 more to pass Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins legend Don Shula. He also has more postseason coaching wins than anyone else, although Andy Reid could pass him as soon as this season if he can lead the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl title after playing in the Wild Card Round. If he were hired, he would become the second-oldest head coach in the NFL, behind only Las Vegas’ Pete Carroll.
Gruden has seen less success as a head coach, posting a combined 122-116 record between the regular season and the playoffs, but he did win a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers and helped the Raiders finish with a top-10 offense in each of the final three seasons of his first stint. He’s also demonstrated his prowess as a broadcaster and analyst. Kafka, on the other hand, would be a first-time head coach, but he helped lead the Giants to a playoff win in 2022 as the offensive play-caller, and he’s interviewed for a head coaching job in each of the last three offseasons.
