Sportsnaut
The New York Giants entered the offseason in search of a new head coach for the fifth time since moving on from franchise legend Tom Coughlin a decade ago. While there were solid options on the market, a perfect replacement for Brian Daboll emerged last week when the Baltimore Ravens fired John Harbaugh after 18 seasons overseeing the roster.
Once he became available, the NY Giants made an unusually aggressive push to land the Super Bowl winner, including a huge yearly rate and a boatload of funds for his staff to lure him to New York/New Jersey. Well, their efforts proved successful, and the two sides are reportedly finalizing a contract to make Harbaugh their new head coach.
Let’s look at the biggest winners and losers from the NY Giants winning the Harbaugh sweepstakes.
Without a shadow of a doubt, John Harbaugh is the big winner here. First, because he is reportedly set to get a contract worth around $20 million a year. Second, despite their recent struggles, the NY Giants have a strong ownership team, and the head coach job is still one of the best in the league. Third, the coach will get the funds to surround himself with the best staff possible, and lastly, he proved the Ravens gave up on an elite coach that many teams around the NFL were frothing at the mouth to get a chance at.
Surprisingly, the Tennessee Titans were viewed as serious contenders for Harbaugh’s services. And reports on Wednesday suggested they would get next in the interview cycle with a meeting at his house this week. However, that is not going to happen.
Hiring Harbaugh would have been a huge coup for the Titans. Now, they must pivot back to the available options, which apparently won’t include former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.
NY Giants fans are very hopeful that 2025 first-round pick Jaxson Dart can be developed into a franchise QB. Well, he now has a new head coach who has a good resume for QB development. Harbaugh isn’t a QB guru per se. However, he has consistently shown he is great at hiring the right people to develop impact signal callers.
While he won’t go to the Hall of Fame, Joe Flacco was developed into a very competitive QB by Harbaugh’s staff and helped lead them to a championship in 2012. Then, when it was obvious they needed to find his replacement, Lamar Jackson was identified and coached up to be one of the sport’s best QBs.
If Dart can be somewhere between Flacco and Jackson, Big Blue fans would be thrilled.
Speaking of Lamar Jackson, he is both a winner and a loser in Harbaugh’s departure. Reports suggested that his relationship with his former coach wasn’t great. So he’s probably looking forward to a new voice leading the locker room, especially if it’s...
