Once upon a time, the Baltimore Ravens did not want to hire John Harbaugh. They preferred Dallas Cowboys assistant Jason Garrett, believe it or not, and only when Garrett decided to stay put did they lean on a recommendation made in the middle of the night.
Bill Belichick called to tell Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti that he should hire the special teams guy with the Eagles, Harbaugh.
“Bill Belichick doesn’t give out recommendations for everybody,” former Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome once told me.
All these years later, Harbaugh doesn’t need Belichick or anyone else to speak on his behalf, not when as many as NINE NFL teams were believed to be interested in him as of Tuesday night. His record, as they say, speaks for itself. Harbaugh won a Super Bowl, 13 postseason games in all (including a league-record eight on the road) and 61.4 percent of his regular-season games over an 18-year career that came to a stunning halt Tuesday afternoon, when Bisciotti told his coach it was time to say goodbye.
John Harbaugh has interest from most teams with head coaching vacancies, but notably, I’m told calls are also coming in from a few teams that currently have a head coach in place.
Lots of discussions going down tonight.
Harbaugh will be at the top of many teams’ wishlists.
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) January 7, 2026
Like his rival, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Harbaugh coached with intensity, dignity and a humanity that connected with his community. They will never forget him in Baltimore, even if Bisciotti apparently forgot that a goal-line fumble, dropped passes and very makeable missed kicks likely cost Harbaugh other playoff victories, including an AFC Championship Game in New England that would have sent the Ravens to the Super Bowl to face the franchise that should hire him ASAP.
The New York Giants.
It seems a bit ridiculous to write that the Giants need to hire Harbaugh. It’s like telling some struggling comedy club that it needs to book Dave Chappelle. That’s why the Giants were working on meeting with Harbaugh as early as this weekend, with the possibility that scheduling challenges will push the conversation into next week.
The team is acting urgently. Everyone in the building, from John Mara to Steve Tisch to Joe Schoen on down, knows the stakes involved.
The Giants are 60 games under .500 since their last season with double-digit victories, 2016. Harbaugh is 41 games over .500 in that same period. He has posted numbers that put him in a different league than another impressive candidate the Giants are currently engaging, fired Browns coach Kevin Stefanski.
Harbaugh is the smarter play. Though I’m on record saying that the Giants and Tomlin would make for a perfect marriage, Tomlin might not become available, and Harbaugh is every bit as good. That’s why every team with a job opening, and other teams without one, are in hot pursuit of the former Ravens coach. (It’s strange to even write that.)
The Giants might not have the luxury to wait and see what goes down in Pittsburgh, especially if the Steelers beat the Texans in Monday night’s playoff game. Too many adversaries see Harbaugh as the answer, and after hiring and firing four straight coaches in the post-Tom Coughlin era who were overwhelmed by the market and the job, the Giants absolutely have to hit this one a mile out of the park.
A few years after he lost that epic Super Bowl to his brother as coach of the 49ers, Jim Harbaugh told me this about the leader of those 2012 Ravens:
“John is the best coach I know, the best I’ve ever come across or competed against. I’m envious of the grasp he has of the entire game. I think offensively and with quarterback play, I’m right there with him. But I’ve got a ways to go in terms of special teams and understanding defense the way he does. I’m half as good as John is, but I’m trying.”
The Giants are desperate for someone with his credibility and toughness. The other day, Darius Slayton, one of the locker room’s most thoughtful voices, said this about what his team needs in a new head coach:
“Somebody that’s Tom Coughlin-esque. I feel like he brought a lot of things to this organization. I think it’s no mistake why he won when he was here. (It) was his personality and the way he went about his business. I think it takes a certain type of person to be a head coach in New York. It’s a tough job, obviously comes with a lot of scrutiny. But I think you need to have a certain disposition to get the job done effectively, and I feel like (Coughlin) probably embodies a lot of the qualities that we require now.”
Slayton might as well have been talking about John Harbaugh, who never backed down from necessary confrontation when building a culture of accountability.
In earlier years, Harbaugh told the likes of Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs that they couldn’t have two lockers instead of one because that kind of star system sent the wrong message to lesser players on the roster. He didn’t let up on Ed Reed when the all-everything safety railed against his messaging. He stood up to Belichick on the field and publicly ripped Tom Brady off the field for saying something the Ravens coach found disrespectful.
Harbaugh even accused his brother of gamesmanship during their Super Bowl duel, ordering the referee to get Jim out of the San Francisco huddle and off the field in the confusion following a Superdome power outage.
“The thing that impressed me about John that week,” Newsome would say, “is you would’ve never known that we were playing against Jim Harbaugh.”
John never made it back to the Super Bowl, even with two-time league MVP Lamar Jackson, and ultimately, it cost him his job. Eighteen years feel like eighty years in the NFL. Even the most compelling voices get tuned out over time.
Jackson could use a new coach, and frankly, Harbaugh could use a new quarterback. He is said to be a fan of Jaxson Dart’s game. We’ll see what he thinks about the rest of this 4-13 roster in due time.
Meanwhile, Harbaugh would be the first coach the Giants have ever hired who had won a Super Bowl somewhere else. Lord knows they have lost enough games already. The stakes are too high for them to lose this one.