The New York Giants have hired John Harbaugh. Congratulations! Do they know that they’re only getting John Harbaugh? That they’re not also getting the Baltimore Ravens talent machine?
Harbaugh was for many people the top head coach available. A Super Bowl winner, a 13-11 playoff record, in 18 years had 13 winning seasons, 12 playoff appearances, and 6 division titles in a competitive division. In the 16 seasons they overlapped, John Harbaugh won just 15 fewer regular season games than Bill Belichick.
His team fairly seamlessly transitioned from team legend and Super Bowl winner Joe Flacco to even better team legend and two time MVP Lamar Jackson. He won double digit games six times in the last eight seasons. An impressive, Hall of Fame worthy record.
Equally, the Ravens are for many people the top job available. Over the last 18 years they had 13 winning seasons, 12 playoff appearances, and 6 division titles in a competitive division. They fairly seamlessly transitioned from team legend and Super Bowl winner Joe Flacco to even better team legend and two time MVP Lamar Jackson. They won double digit games six times in the last eight seasons. This is perhaps the best organization in the NFL. The Ravens have a Tier 1 front office that gave Harbaugh the tools to succeed.
He won’t have that in New York. Success in one location guarantees nothing in the next.
George Seifert seemed a lock to make the Hall of Fame when he and the 49ers parted ways after the 1996 season. A two time Super Bowl champion, he never won fewer than 10 games in a season. In seven playoff appearances he went one and done just once. If he never coached another game after the 49ers, he would have the greatest career winning percentage in NFL history aside from Guy Chamberlin, who coached in the 1920s and who coached nearly half as many games as Seifert. In three years with the Carolina Panthers, Seifert never had a winning season and ended his career on a 15 game losing streak.
Mike Shanahan won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Broncos then rebuilt the team from the John Elway and Terrell Davis years and made the playoffs four times over the next six seasons with Brian Griese and Jake Plummer as his QBs. He went 24-40 in Washington.
Or just look at this season, in 14 years with the Seahawks Pete Carroll won a Super Bowl, got to another, made the playoffs 10 times, won double digit games 8 times and lost double digit games just once. Carroll just went 3-14 and got fired from the mess that is the Las Vegas Raiders.
Certainly Harbaugh deserves credit for keeping the Ravens machine going for nearly two decades. But he wasn’t the one who built the machine, and Giants GM Joe Schoen is no Eric DeCosta, let alone Ozzie Newsome.
Good luck John, you’ll need it!
