Jim Harbaugh ranked a Top 10 returning head coach: ‘all [he] knows is success’

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman ranked Jim Harbaugh the No. 6 returning NFL head coach.

For 21 years, Jim Harbaugh has coached at the collegiate and NFL level and led his team to success. Only three of those years, 2007-2008 with Stanford and 2020, a COVID-shortened season, with Michigan, were losing years. And that success has PFF’s Dalton Wasserman ranking Harbaugh as the sixth-best returning NFL head coach in 2025.

“His 2012 49ers outfit was a mere 5 yards short of defeating his brother, John, and the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl. He has since won a national championship at Michigan and has seemingly turned around the Chargers’ previously moribund culture,” Wasserman wrote. “The primary appeal for Harbaugh taking the Chargers job was quarterback Justin Herbert. Harbaugh and Greg Roman recaptured the magic of Herbert’s abilities in their first year on the job. Herbert set career highs last season with a 90.2 PFF passing grade, 7.7 yards per attempt and a 5.7% big-time throw rate. Also on the list of accomplishments for Harbaugh is leading a previously porous defense to the third-best PFF grade in the NFL in 2024. All Jim Harbaugh knows is success, and he’s carried that tradition with him to Los Angeles.”

While Harbaugh ranks high in the NFL, Wasserman has two of his divisional coaching foes ahead of him. Kansas City Chiefs’ Andy Reid ranks No. 1, and just below him is Denver Broncos’ Sean Payton.

Of the five coaches ahead of Harbaugh, four are in the AFC, including his older brother John at No. 4 and Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin at No. 5.