Big Blue View
I usually ignore the annual “dumpster fire” series of posts Jimmy Kempski of the Philly Voice pens, trashing the Philadelphia Eagles’ NFC East opposition. This year, I decided to respond to Kempski’s ‘10 reasons the Giants will be a dumpster fire‘.
Maybe that’s because the Giants have actually been a dumpster fire more often than not since winning the 2011 Super Bowl, and I believe that is going to turn with the hiring of John Harbaugh as head coach.
Kempski’s 10 reasons, and my responses, are below.
Harbaugh is 63 years of age, the second-oldest head coach in the NFL, behind only Andy Reid (68). In 18 seasons as the Ravens’ head coach, Harbaugh had an impressive career regular season record of 180-113 (0.614). During his Ravens tenure, Harbaugh only had three losing seasons, one of which was in 2025, when the Ravens went 8-9 during a season in which the rest of the AFC — and particularly the AFC North — was relatively weak.
Harbaugh also had a winning record in the playoffs in Baltimore. He was 13-11 (0.542), a record that was powered by the Ravens’ 4-0 Super Bowl run during the 2012 season, Harbaugh’s lone championship season.
Ultimately, Harbaugh will bring a base competency to the Giants that they did not have with their last three stooge hires of Daboll, Pat Shurmur, and Joe Judge.
Since his Super Bowl win, despite employing a clear-cut, top five-type quarterback in Lamar Jackson for eight seasons and usually having a contending roster otherwise, Harbaugh somehow only won four playoff games in 13 seasons, and never more than one in a season. He was 4-7 in playoff games during that span. There have been 14 teams since 2013 that have won at least that many, and 12 that have won more.
Kempski also offers a Harbaugh-Mike McCarthy comparison:
• Harbaugh: 180-113 (0.614) regular season, 13-11 (0.542) playoffs, 4 playoff wins since winning the Super Bowl in 2012.
• McCarthy: 174-112-2 (0.608) regular season, 11-11 (0.500) playoffs, 5 playoff wins since winning the Super Bowl in 2010.
He adds:
Harbaugh is considered some great coach, and McCarthy a joke, but they’re basically the same guy.
Anyone can nitpick the work done by someone who held the same job for 18 years. There will be good and bad decisions. There will be successes and failures. Still, Harbaugh was good enough at his job to last six times longer than NFL head coaches usually do.
Harbaugh was a no-brainer hire for the Giants once the Baltimore Ravens fired him. He was the only coach available who had the resume and respect to make the Giants change their organizational structure to a coach-centric model where the GM is not at the top of the food chain.
The Giants are betting that Harbaugh can finally bring them out of the malaise they have been in for most of the...
