Posted on 01/07/2026 6:06:14 AM PST by Red Badger
OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- In 2008, midway through the Baltimore Ravens' news conference introducing John Harbaugh as their head coach, a reporter referred to the fact that owner Steve Bisciotti said he was searching for the next Pro Football Hall of Fame coach.
"By the way, did you know I said that?" Bisciotti said with a laugh, patting Harbaugh on the back.
Without hesitation, Harbaugh casually responded: "Yeah, I read that somewhere."
Now, 18 seasons later, the Ravens are looking for a new head coach after Harbaugh put together a Hall of Fame career in Baltimore. Harbaugh was fired Tuesday after guiding the Ravens to a Super Bowl title in 2012, six AFC North titles and 193 victories, including 13 in the postseason.
The dismissal of Harbaugh, 63, came two days after Baltimore lost 26-24 at the Pittsburgh Steelers, which eliminated the Ravens from playoff contention for the first time since 2021. Baltimore (8-9) also finished with a losing record for the third time under Harbaugh, who is the franchise's winningest coach.
"Following a comprehensive evaluation of the season and the overall direction of our organization, I decided to make a change at head coach," Bisciotti said in a statement. "This was an incredibly difficult decision."
(Excerpt) Read more at espn.com ...
Half the time the GM should be fired for assembling a bad team. But GMs don’t give many press conferences, aren’t on the sideline, and are largely invisible. So they don’t get fired nearly often enough.
A lot of it is about owners trying to keep fans engaged. When the fans start grumbling, when but stop going in seats (Ravens had a really bad home record this season, and the last couple games the stadium was noticeably less full) then owners feel the need to “do something”. Player contracts are complicated, with cap implications and all kinds of stuff, so it’s very hard to rebuild the team quickly and visibly. Coaches are visible, and easy to fire (sure the contracts are guaranteed, but it’s not part of any team cost rules so who cares if you’re paying 2 former head coaches and your actual coach in the same year). So out they go. Usually they shouldn’t. I think the only valid coach firing so far this year is AZ, he’d had three seasons, nothing was getting better. But that’s sport for ya.
Ww. What’s this make, 7 head coaches now?
Looks like Harbaugh isn’t going to be out of a job very long.
Possibly Miami.............
John Harbaugh was there for 18 years. Perhaps the owner felt it was time for a change.
If people still wore pagers, it would have been going off multiple times during the press conference.
i guess if ted did come back from the dead to coach... i would have to consider the heavenly intervention, but he’d still too conservative when he got a lead.
I get why they canned him though. Despite being a good coach, sometimes you get in a rut and can't get out. Same thing with Tomlin in Pittsburgh. He is a good coach, but I think it is time for a change.
Maybe the franchises should just swap coaches. I'd take Harbaugh for Tomlin in a minute. Not sure my Raven counterparts would agree tho.
I think that Baltimore is stupid.
Harbaugh is a great coach.
Lamar Jackson is a CHOKE ARTIST.
Every season he choked in the big game. Last year it was to Buffalo. Every season since he was drafted it looked like Baltimore would be the team to beat in the AFC. Then Lamar would CHOKE in the big game.
They should have traded Lamar and gotten a First Round draft pick.
Of the 32 teams, I think the average number fired each year is six. Considering John H had 18 years and was the longest tenure in NFL head coaching (beaten by the second longest running coach), there must be a lot of revolving-door head coaching jobs in the NFL.
The winning strategy revolves around coaching and players. A coach rarely gets a whole season with an intact roster due to injuries, the ones who persevere tend to endure.
Even when every injured player bounces back, the roster ages every year, and there’s always some shift across the league going on due to who and what’s coming in as rookies and who’s leaving due to retirements or inability to get the job done.
Owners have GMs; both have various priorities, and they get tired of missing the playoffs, or in a worst case scenario (there’s more than one of those), when a coach revives a team and takes them into the playoffs, wins, wins, reaches the Super Bowl, then loses, well, the owner thinks that’s not quite good enough, and punishes that success with a good old fashioned firing. Obviously, not a bad idea to stick with the coach one more year, but, nooooo.
Of course, the proviso here is, all the NFL owners are millionaires, or even billionaires, and didn’t get that way by accident. Most of us are not.
The funniest part about that miss to me is that they’d done that “center the ball” play to get it off the left hash. And then he misses 10 feet to the right. If they’d let the ball stay on the left hash and everything else is the same it’s good. Whoops.
and the Raiders have no roster. And Davis fires the coach every year. Anybody getting the Raiders job shouldn’t even rent, stay in a hotel. No way Harbaugh joins that mess.
I am kind of surprised the Dolphins coach is still there.
QBs are grossly overpaid here and there. The better QBs tend to stick around longer, get paid a lot but appropriately. Those who insist on a guaranteed money figure so high only a dog can hear it are not worth it. Eventually they wind up (not) playing for the Browns.
Failure of the O-line is a big factor when trying to develop young QBs, but some are just dumb as rocks and can't process quickly enough. Turning running back because ya can't find anyone open is not something to rely on.
Sean Payton says that sacks are not really an O-line stat, they're a QB stat. He's right.
I like him. I think he’s a good coach. Clearly the team is desperate for a QB. But it is kind of a shock they kept. And very odd they went on that win streak after firing the GM. Of course when they hire a new GM he’ll probably fire McDaniel, GMs usually want their guy.
Justin Tucker would have made that kick.
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