As training camp approaches, the excitement and anticipation among Giants fans is almost palpable with the John Harbaugh Giants era about to begin. Now is a good time to ask: What would a successful Harbaugh tenure look like, and how likely is it to happen?
I specifically chose the featured image of Harbaugh above because it shows him wearing a New York Knicks cap after their thrilling (and I mean thrilling, I don’t know how much more exciting you can get than those NBA Finals games) run to the NBA Championship.
We all agree, I’m sure, on the answer to my question above: We want Harbaugh to eventually lead the Giants to their next Super Bowl Championship.
It’s a tall order. Not only because of the Giants’ dismal history since their last Super Bowl run, but because of league history. Here is a list of all the NFL head coaches who have won Super Bowls with two different teams:
…
…
Anyone? Anyone?
That’s right. It’s never been done before. There are seven head coaches who have taken two different franchises to multiple Super Bowls:
- Don Shula (Colts and Dolphins)
- Bill Parcells (Giants and Patriots)
- Dan Reeves (Broncos and Falcons)
- Mike Holmgren (Packers and Seahawks)
- Dick Vermeil (Eagles and Rams)
- John Fox (Panthers and Broncos)
- Andy Reid (Eagles and Chiefs)
None of them won it all at both stops, however. This is obviously relevant to the Giants’ current situation because Harbaugh got a ring in his fifth season in Baltimore. In other sports we don’t see the same thing. For example, four baseball managers have won World Series with two different teams (Bucky Harris, Bill McKechnie, Sparky Anderson, Tony LaRussa), and Bruce Bochy has won it all with three different franchises. It’s not clear whether it’s just luck or whether it’s uniquely difficult for NFL teams for some reason.
What got me thinking about this is the great piece Ed published on his interview with Harbaugh last week. SB Nation’s Ravens site, Baltimore Beatdown, republished the piece on their site. This attracted some Ravens fans to comment on the piece and engaged many of you in a spirited discussion about Harbaugh’s bona fides as an NFL head coach. For someone who won a Super Bowl, got his team to the playoffs 11 other times, and only had a losing record three times in an 18-year tenure, it may be a surprise that many Ravens’ fans reactions were of the “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” variety. Here are a couple. (Aside: Can’t beat SB Nation sites for amusing screen names.)
In some sense, Harbaugh can be seen as the safe choice for head coach, given his long experience and the fact that he has one ring (at the expense of brother Jim, who has never won a Super Bowl). He probably sets a floor for competence that the Giants haven’t had since the Coughlin days. The opposing point of view, though, is that three of the past five Super Bowls have been won by young head coaches in their first head coaching jobs (Sean McVay, Nick Sirianni, Mike McDonald), while other young head coaches such as Ben Johnson and Liam Cohen led teams that made an impressive showing last season.
So the question is why Harbaugh never got the Ravens back to the Super Bowl. Unlike the Giants, the finger can’t be pointed at the Ravens’ front office, considered one of the best. Part of it is just the bad luck to have been in the same conference as the Chiefs at the height of Patrick Mahomes’ career, and earlier during the heyday of the Belichick-Brady Patriots. There hasn’t been any such dominant NFC team over the same time period – so far – though we’ll see whether Seattle becomes one. Aside from that, perhaps we can take the Ravens fans’ ostensibly legitimate criticisms of Harbaugh to heart and be on the lookout to see whether Harbaugh is able to do the following with the Giants:
- Maximize a possible elite young quarterback
- Make the right roster and playing time decisions
- Devise game plans and call plays that exploit opponent weaknesses
- Use the clock smartly
- Use challenge flags wisely
Harbaugh will get some mileage just by being an authoritative presence in a locker room that needs that. He can’t help but get better performance from the defense than last year, just from the switch in defensive coordinators, never mind the additions to the roster. On the offensive side, though, the same may not be true. Whatever one thinks of Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka, they did a lot with an offense that had few skilled players for much of the time they were Giants. It is TBD whether the Matt Nagy – Brian Callahan – Greg Roman troika will be as effective.
There are precedents for head coaches that did not win it all for a long time but eventually got there. Reid has been a head coach in the NFL for 27 consecutive years. He got to the Super Bowl but did not win it in his sixth year in Philadelphia and never got back again. Eight years and no Super Bowls later, he was gone. He moved to Kansas City and went another six years without even appearing in a Super Bowl. Since then he’s been to the Super Bowl five times and won three.
Tom Coughlin was the inaugural head coach of the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars. Amazingly he made them a winning team by Year 2 and led them to a 14-2 record and the AFC Championship Game by Year 5. Three losing years later, he was fired. He took over the Giants in 2004 and after one losing season made them a playoff team, but after considerable player dissatisfaction with his approach, he made changes that finally gave him his first (of two) Super Bowl rings in the 2007 season.
All of this is to say that Harbaugh’s past will not necessarily be his future. The two examples above tell us something about what his future actually will be. Reid won when he got Patrick Mahomes as his quarterback. Coughlin won (eventually) when he got Eli Manning as his quarterback. Why Harbaugh didn’t win with Lamar Jackson may not be known until we see whether Jackson finally reaches the Promised Land under Jesse Minter. The likely bottom line, though, is that John Harbaugh’s tenure as Giants head coach will hinge on what Jaxson Dart’s ceiling turns out to be, and whether Harbaugh and his offensive coaches can get him to it.
