How Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka run a flexible, unique Giants offense

The Giants are 5-1 entering Sunday’s game at Jacksonville because they have outscored opponents 87-49 in second halves, overcoming three double-digit deficits.

They’ve scored only 40 first-half points in six games — and 48 in the fourth quarter.

How are they doing it? With a flexible and unique offensive playbook, a detailed game-tracking operation, and a coaching staff humble enough to scrap their plans.

“The adjustments are working,” Saquon Barkley said Thursday.

Backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor told the Daily News that head coach Brian Daboll and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka have threaded the Giants’ core concepts through various formations, which makes in-game adjustments easier.

Screen passes to Barkley out of the backfield didn’t hit early against the Green Bay Packers, for example. But slipping him out of a slot stack formation in a similar catch-and-run concept busted the game open in the second half.

“It’s easy for us to tweak it and readjust in-game,” Taylor said. “Being able to adjust on the fly and still play true to your scheme and put guys in a position to execute? I’ve been in some offenses where that hasn’t been the case. I think Kaf and Dabes do a great job of putting us in a position to execute whatever the game may dictate.”

Daniel Jones said those adjustments aren’t always made because a play didn’t work, either. Sometimes a call produces a big gain and Daboll and Kafka use their tricks to call the same concept — it just might be out of a different set, to a different player or at their varying speeds of tempo, pace or huddle.

“The whole staff is on the same page with things they want to get to, things that are working, and then finding other ways to run a similar concept that’s worked earlier in the game,” Jones said. “[It might be] out of a different formation or with a different guy doing it. I think they’ve been pretty creative and smart with that kind of stuff.”

Jones has options on lots of plays, too, often with a quarterback running element. Marrying so many concepts together — from play to play and formation to formation — is a calling card of Andy Reid’s offense with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kafka, who calls the Giants’ plays into Jones’ helmet on Sundays, admitted he is strongly influenced by his longtime mentor.

“When I started coaching with Coach Reid he was big on that: showing certain looks, showing formations, certain plays, then complementing those looks off of the action of a personnel grouping,” Kafka said. “That was important to learn that, and I think that’s probably where it started for me is how do you build that? How do you build off of those plays or things that you’ve shown in weeks before to then bring up in a game that the defense is kind of anticipating.”

Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said he can see Kafka’s impact on the Giants’ scheme. Pederson was Kafka’s Eagles quarterbacks coach in 2011, and he studied under Reid before blossoming into a Super Bowl-winning head coach.

“It doesn’t surprise me the success that the Giants are having,” Pederson said. “I would put quite a bit on Kafka for that success … I think the world of Mike, and maybe one day he’ll be a head coach, as well.”

The challenge for the Giants’ players when they first arrive is digesting the voluminous playbook. It’s not easy. Starting wide receiver Marcus Johnson, for example, said he spent the first two weeks on the practice squad simply studying and memorizing.

Then he got in the practice huddle, and the calls came in faster, and he had to pick up the information at a higher speed. And eventually, Johnson led the Giants in snaps against Green Bay, made a key third-down catch against the Ravens, and got signed to the active roster.

Some players say even the terminology in Daboll’s and Kafka’s playbook is unfamiliar — and not just a copycat from someone’s coaching tree. They believe that may keep defenses guessing because opponents don’t know what they’re hearing from Jones.

“We try to make some word association things,” Kafka said. One of Jones’ checks at the line against Baltimore, in fact, was: “Andy Reid.”

Defenses can’t always trust what they’re seeing from the Giants, either, with so many players in motion and window-dressing added to move their eyes.

Exhibit A: last week’s wheel route pass to running back Matt Breida had three running backs on the field and multiple players motioning pre-snap before they executed their veering routes.

What happens on the field is just the end result, though, of a detailed process behind the scene of accumulating and assessing data that informs the Giants’ adjustments.

Offensive assistant Christian Jones and quality control coach Angela Baker write down play calls, fill out sheets on opponents’ tendencies, and track stats up in the box. Every coach on the sideline has an assistant supporting from that birds’ eye view.

And in a wrinkle that GM Joe Schoen and Daboll brought from Buffalo, the scout who did the advance scouting report on that week’s opponent joins the coaches in the box as an in-game resource and another layer of quality control.

Sunday, take note of pro personnel scout Nick La Testa standing with Kafka and the coaches when the camera pans. Any given Sunday it could be La Testa, Steven Price, Corey Lockett or director of pro scouting Chris Rosetti, pulled out of the main press box and into the Giants’ command center for the afternoon.

“I think the teams that adjust well at halftime aren’t stubborn,” Taylor said. “Some teams don’t adjust because they don’t have anything else to go to. They’re stuck in their system and trying to pound their system, not necessarily taking into consideration it’s not working.

“Our offensive coaches have done a great job of seeing what may have not gone well in the first half,” he said, “and doing more of what we did have success with.”

OJULARI ON ICE

The Giants abruptly placed edge rusher Azeez Ojulari (calf) on injured reserve Saturday, meaning he will miss the next four games at least. He has only played in two games so far through six weeks

Edge Quincy Roche was signed to the active roster from the practice squad. LB/S Landon Collins and DL Ryder Anderson were elevated from the practice squad.

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