Giants are not making any staff changes this week, interim coach Mike Kafka says

When Mike Kafka took over as interim coach of the New York Giants after the firing of Brian Daboll, he said he would evaluate everything.

Following another blown fourth-quarter lead that caused a fifth consecutive loss and dropped the Giants to 2-9 this season, Kafka is not planning to make any changes to his staff this week before playing at Detroit on Sunday.

“I would say status quo,” Kafka said Monday on a video call with reporters. “I wouldn’t anticipate any. As a matter of fact, we’re going to go and attack this week. I’m excited for this week of prep. The coaches are excited about it.”

Status quo means Shane Bowen remains in his role as defensive coordinator. His unit allowed 27 points to Green Bay, which had scored 20 combined over the previous two weeks, including a seven-play, 65-yard touchdown drive in just over three minutes that provided the final margin of defeat.

The Giants had a chance to win despite that. Jameis Winston was intercepted in the end zone with 36 seconds left, and the journeyman quarterback was sacked and fumbled on the game’s final play.

It’s unclear if rookie Jaxson Dart will be cleared to face the Lions, or whether Winston will make back-to-back starts. Kafka said Dart remains in concussion protocol.

“I’m just going to see that through, talk with the medical (staff) and when they give us the thumbs-up, then we’ll take the next action,” Kafka said.

The run game got rolling, piling up 142 yards between backs Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary and Winston. Tracy had 19 carries for 88 yards, while Singletary rushed for two touchdowns.

“Big guys up front, they were moving guys,” Singletary said. “But we expected that. We knew they were capable of that. Me and Trace, all we had to do was run. Even the receivers got in on it, the tight ends got in on all the dirty work, so that was big for us.”

While the pass rush got to Jordan Love and put the Packers QB under duress all afternoon, he was still able to connect with receivers downfield because of lapses in coverage. It did not help that No. 1 cornerback Paulson Adebo was a late scratch because of knee soreness, missing yet another game since his last action in mid-October.

Deonte Banks struggled defending against the pass and the run, particularly Emanuel Wilson’s 11-yard TD on which he provided very little resistance. The 2023 first-round draft pick has not made much of a case to be part of New York’s future.

The Giants have been looking for someone — anyone — to step up at wide receiver since losing Malik Nabers to a season-ending knee injury, so last week they brought back a favorite of the Daboll era by signing Isaiah Hodgins off Pittsburgh’s practice squad. Hodgins led the team with five catches for 57 yards.

“Short notice, coming in on a Thursday and being a huge part of the offense, critical fourth downs, critical third downs, critical blocks on the perimeter, this guy just stepped up,” Kafka said.

Offensive lineman Evan Neal’s final snap with the team that selected him with the seventh pick in the 2022 draft may have come on Dec. 29, 2024. After getting moved from tackle to guard in the hopes of reviving his career, Neal has not played this season and was put on injured reserve over the weekend.

Kafka said Neal got hurt doing a workout and that doctors decided IR was the best course of action.

Dart's status is the biggest question moving forward, along with Adebo. Edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux missed the Packers game with a shoulder injury.

10 1/2 — Points the Lions are favored by over the Giants, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

Make sure Dart does not do anything to damage his long-term health. Kafka and others inside the organization have tried to talk to the 22-year-old about not taking unnecessary hits, though they also don't want to take away from Dart's aggressiveness.

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New York Giants' Tyrone Tracy Jr. runs for a first down during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Giants' Devin Singletary runs for a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Green Bay Packers' Micah Parsons knocks the ball from New York Giants' Jameis Winston on the final play of the game Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Giants interim head coach Mike Kafka watches during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Giants interim head coach Mike Kafka is seen on the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit filed by the parents of an environmental activist who was shot dead by Georgia state troopers, saying their actions were “objectively reasonable” when they shot pepper balls into the activist's tent and ultimately fired fatal gunshots after the 26-year-old shot one of the troopers.

The Jan. 18, 2023, shooting of Manuel Paez Terán, known as “Tortuguita,” was a galvanizing moment for the movement to halt the construction of what critics labeled “Cop City,” a sprawling police and firefighter training center that opened last year on the site of a forest and former prison farm just outside Atlanta.

Paez Terán’s family later sued three law enforcement officers who they say planned and carried out the raid against protesters who had spent months camping in the woods near the DeKalb County construction site. The lawsuit said troopers violated Paez Terán's free speech rights and used excessive force against the activist, who then panicked and began firing shots. An autopsy commissioned by the family concluded that Paez Terán, who used they/them pronouns, was sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air when they were shot more than a dozen times.

In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg noted that, as the plaintiffs have acknowledged, Paez Terán fired at the troopers, wounding one of them, which the judge said makes the troopers' lethal response reasonable. Grimberg also said that prior to the shooting, troopers were within their rights to fire pepper balls at Paez Terán after the activist, who was accused of criminal trespass, did not comply with orders to leave the tent.

“Because Paez Teran initiated gunfire with the (Georgia State Patrol) officers, Plaintiffs cannot maintain that Defendants’ actions were the proximate cause of the use of deadly force that ultimately ended the decedent’s life,” the judge wrote.

Grimberg also ruled that the officers had qualified immunity, special legal protection that prevents people from suing over claims that police or government workers violated their constitutional rights.

Paez Terán’s parents, Belkis Terán and Joel Paez, are “devastated” by the judge's ruling, according to their attorneys, Jeff Filipovits and Wingo Smith.

“They feel they are being denied the accountability they deserve,” the attorneys said in a statement. “The records of their child’s death still have not been publicly released. They will be reviewing all their legal options.”

Body camera footage from four Atlanta officers involved does not show the shooting itself, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said. But the agency said footage shows the officers encountered Paez Terán in a tent in the woods and fired in self-defense after the activist shot at troopers and ignored verbal commands to leave the tent.

A prosecutor declined to charge the troopers who killed Paez Terán, saying their use of deadly force was “objectively reasonable.” Investigators have also said ballistics evidence shows the injured trooper was shot with a bullet from a gun Paez Terán legally purchased in 2020.

Activists formed the “Stop Cop City” movement to protest the construction of an 85-acre (34-hectare) Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, which they said would cause environmental damage by cutting down huge swathes of trees and exacerbate flooding fears in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood. They also opposed the use of tens of millions in public funding on what critics described as a training ground for “urban warfare.”

Protests against the facility at times veered into violence, with some masked activists torching police cars and construction equipment — actions that ultimately led to a sprawling racketeering indictment against 61 protesters in 2023. A Fulton County judge tossed the landmark case on procedural grounds last year, but Republican Attorney General Chris Carr is appealing the ruling.

Though the movement has receded since the filing of the racketeering charges and the opening of the training center, the name Tortuguita is still invoked at anti-police protests, and the activist's image has become a common sight in murals and flyers across Atlanta.

FILE - Belkis Terán, left, Daniel Paez, center, and Pedro Terán, family members of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as “Tortuguita,” in poster at right, embrace during a news conference, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Decatur, Ga. (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, File)