Giants hire Michael Ghobrial as new special teams coordinator off Jets staff
Michael Ghobrial answered his phone Thursday shortly after he was hired by the Giants, and four passengers in a car headed to a Utah airport started shouting congratulations on the other end of the call.
When the Giants announced the hiring of Ghobrial as their new special teams coordinator, Jets punter Thomas Morstead, kicker Greg Zuerlein, long snapper Thomas Hennessy and special teams coordinator Brant Boyer were just wrapping up a team-bonding snowmobiling trip.
Ghobrial, the Jets assistant special teams coordinator for the past three seasons, likely would have joined them if not for his commitment to interviews like the one with Giants head coach Brian Daboll that landed him a job across town.
“We all got the news together and we called Ghoby together to wish him the best,” Morstead told The Post. “That was pretty cool.”
Ghobrial previously was a college special teams coordinator for five seasons at Washington State (2020), Hawaii (2018-19) and Tarleton State (2016-17).
His introduction to the NFL was through a Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship with the Lions in 2017.
“More than anything, he’s somebody I trust because you know that he’s put in as much prep work as anybody, and he’s earned the right to coach you hard,” Morstead said.
“He’s also not set in his ways. The best relationships I’ve had with coaches in my career are when you are able to have dialogue, you are able to disagree. If you know everybody’s intent is to win then you are able to have this collaboration where everybody is wrestling each other to get to the best way of doing things.”
Ghobrial will replace Thomas McGaughey, who Daboll retained on his original staff after he previously served as special teams coordinator under Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge.
“I couldn’t be happier for Ghoby. Selfishly, I’m sad to see him go, but it was only a matter of time,” Morstead said. “He made a significant financial sacrifice a number of years ago to get into the NFL and have a chance to chase his dream of being a coordinator at the highest level. It shows you that it’s not all about the money for somebody like him. He bet on himself.”
Since Daboll was hired in January 2022, he has made four coordinator hires — with at least one more (defense) coming this offseason — and in each case picked a candidate with whom he had not previously worked.
He was not deterred from emphasizing the interview process toward selecting based on familiarity by the contentious relationship leading to an ugly split from former defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.
“The Giants are getting somebody who is really passionate about what he does — a tireless worker with a lot of energy,” Morstead said. “He did a lot of work studying the opponent, getting all the information he can from watching film from the previous two years of all the different things we could expect on game day.”
It has been a long time since the Giants broke from the same coaching tree on special teams.
Tom Quinn was the coordinator from 2007-17 and then stepped back into a role as assistant special teams coordinator under his one-time protégé for the first four of McGaughey’s six seasons in charge.
Ghobrial will bring three years at the side of Boyer, who is considered one of the NFL’s best.
The Jets’ special teams ranked in the top 13 in each of the last three years — including No. 3 when the Giants were No. 28 in 2023 — in the Bill Belichick-approved league-wide rankings compiled annually by reporter Rick Gosselin.
“Something that Brant does a nice job of is giving Ghoby the opportunity to coach in front of the team sometimes and have the floor to grow,” Morstead said. “It’s not going to be his first time doing a bunch of those speeches. He really has a good command in front of the guys, and out on the field he’s very vocal.”