What We Know About Jim Harbaugh’s Future Michigan Football NFLANN
Seasons change, but in Michigan, offseason drama boils down to the eternal question:
Where does Jim Harbaugh want to be?The only person who can answer that is Harbaugh, and even he might not be sure.
After leading Michigan to its first national championship in a quarter century, Harbaugh is once again exploring a return to the NFL. Michigan is fighting to keep him, but it appears to be an uphill battle.
With news of Harbaugh interviewing for the Los Angeles Chargers and Atlanta Falcons head coaching jobs, Michigan is bracing for the possibility that Harbaugh’s long-gestated departure will happen.
Here’s what we know about Harbaugh and the NFL.NFL option under considerationHarbaugh interviewed with the Chargers and Falcons this week, both teams confirmed. The Chargers’ interview wasn’t a surprise: Harbaugh played with the franchise late in his career, and his name came up almost immediately after Brandon Staley was fired in December.
The Falcons interview came out of left field. Interviewing with multiple teams is another sign that Harbaugh is serious about returning to the NFL and is willing to commit to NFL teams instead of waiting for an offer.
While the Falcons have an interesting core of young players led by quarterback Bijan Robinson, the Chargers position is considered a more natural fit for Harbaugh.
The Chargers have prime-time quarterback Justin Herbert, an extremely talented player who could use a coach like Harbaugh to unleash his full potential. The Chargers are hiring a general manager, which gives them the flexibility to pair Harbaugh with a GM like Baltimore Ravens director of player personnel Joe Hortiz or Indianapolis Colts assistant GM Ed Dodds.The Las Vegas Raiders are another team that has been mentioned as a possible target, but they have a strong internal candidate in Antonio Pierce and have not yet entered the Harbaugh lottery.
All eyes are on the Chargers, who continue to meet with candidates and interviewed former Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel on Thursday.Jim Harbaugh went 44-19-1 in four seasons as coach of the San Francisco 49ers. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)Unfinished Business in NFLHarbaugh said as much after interviewing with the Minnesota Vikings in 2022 and leaving Minnesota without a job offer.
“For me, it was February 3, 2013, when our team in San Francisco was 5 yards, one play away from winning the Super Bowl,” Harbaugh said two years ago on Michigan’s “In the Trenches” podcast. . – Two years after that, I left the 49ers for Michigan and signed a seven-year contract. Seven years passed and I wondered if it was time or time to go back and end it.Now that Harbaugh has finished his ninth season at Michigan, perhaps the time has come. Harbaugh said he was ready to close the door on returning to the NFL after his interview with the Vikings, but apparently he wasn’t. The door is open again, in part because Michigan just accomplished a goal Harbaugh circled when he returned in 2022.”Winning the ultimate prize in football, the Super Bowl, is great,” Harbaugh said in the same interview. “We’re going to win the ultimate prize in college football and that’s a national championship.
That’s what we’re fully focused on and that’s what we want to do.”Contract negotiations have been toughA few months ago, Harbaugh referred to his contract negotiations with Michigan as “a 3 1/2-year affair.
” It was a remarkable statement, as he will finish the second year of a five-year deal in 2022.In Harbaugh’s mind, it appears his 2021 contract negotiations never ended, even though he later signed two contracts at Michigan.
The first was an incentive-laden deal that cut his guaranteed salary in half. The other was his current contract, which guaranteed him $8.2 million this season, 12th among FBS coaches in the USA Today salary database. While Harbaugh’s total salary tops $11 million with bonuses for winning the Big Ten and national championships, his base salary puts him behind Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Penn State’s James Franklin and other coaches with smaller resumes. 4,444 4,444 There was talk of renegotiating Harbaugh’s contract after the 2022 season, but that didn’t happen, in part because Harbaugh faced a possible Level I charge from the NCAA for his alleged failure to cooperate with the investigation into the COVID recruiting violations.
-19 dead time. Contract negotiations picked up in the middle of the season, but were cut short by the Connor Stallions investigation. As negotiations continued, the NFL recruiting cycle approached and Harbaugh prepared his team for the Rose Bowl.
So the saga continues.deeperdeeperHow different will Michigan look in 2024? 10 thoughts after the championship celebrationIt’s not about the moneyHarbaugh’s proposed contract at Michigan would make him the highest-paid coach in the Big Ten and one of the highest-paid coaches in the country, along with Georgia’s Kirby Smart. Dollars were never a question.
Harbaugh’s negotiations at Michigan were essentially about trust, security and commitment.Coaching contracts typically contain provisions that allow a school to fire a coach for violating NCAA rules or otherwise bringing the university into disrepute. Harbaugh’s current contract allows the university to fire him for cause if the NCAA or the Big Ten finds him guilty of a Level I or II violation, or if it finds that the violation resulted from his failure to properly supervise the program.
Given Michigan’s ongoing problems with the NCAA, Harbaugh is understandably wary of signing a contract that could be voided at any time. Michigan.
