Rich Eisen Weighs In on What the Giants are Getting in John Harbaugh as Their Next Head Coach [8:09]

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.

1) Reportedly, Kevin Stefanski flew in for his Giants interview aboard a regular airliner. The Giants owner sent his private jet to pick up Harbaugh for his interview. This was probably in the bag as soon as the Ravens gave John the boot.

2) I don’t watch whole podcasts, by and large

3) Rich Eisen said his brother is a lawyer, and given Rich’s politics, it wouldn’t surprise me that his brother is Norm Eisen

[Transcript]

We start today’s program here on the second Thursday of this new year. We start today’s program in the middle of January on November 18th, 2007. That was the day the New York Giants went into Detroit and beat the Detroit Lions thanks to Eli Manning’s arm. Manning 16 to 10. Oh, the reason why I bring this up is that it was on this day Tom Coughlin, who had joined the Giants organization just a couple of years ago with 68 career wins from his Jacksonville Jaguars tenure, won his 32nd game as head coach of the New York Giants, giving him, we’ll do the math for you, 100 career regular season wins.

At the time, that was a rarity because no other coach has stood on a Giants sideline since with 100 career coaching wins. The last time the Giants had somebody stand on their sideline with 100 career regular season coaching wins, it wasn’t Bill Parcells, who won only 77 games, starting his career as a Hall of Fame head coach with the Giants. It was Steve Owen, who holds the record for most career wins by any Giants head coach with 153. And here he is on the sideline talking to his New York football Giants, as they were known back in those days. That’s Yankee Stadium. Behind him, he’s talking to Tom Landry right there on the screen. Looking at that, is that Tom Landry who played for the Giants before he became, as we know, an all-time great winning games for the Dallas Cowboys?

That’s it. Those are the coaches in Giants history who have stood on the sidelines with 100 career wins until week one of next season because John Harbaugh is going to be the next head coach of the New York Giants, the 21st full-time head coach in Giants history. The New York Post, their headline this very day: “Har Boss.” All signs point to championship coach taking charge of Big Blue.

This is a rarity for the Giants, not just because of what I just said, but John Harbaugh will be the first head coach in the history of this franchise to stand on the sidelines for the first time to coach them with a Super Bowl ring in his back pocket or in his home closet or a championship figuratively inside his playbook. Nobody’s ever taken the reins of the Giants who’s either already won a Super Bowl or an NFL championship. As you know, we’re going way back here.

So, John Harbaugh’s coming. And it’s after 18 seasons with the Ravens, the second most seasons with one franchise, entering a new job with another franchise. The only guy with more seasons with one franchise before joining another is Curly Lambeau, with 29 seasons with the Packers before he moved on to the Cardinals. Whoa. That’s it. Some historic stuff. Curly Lambeau. John Harbaugh. This is the sort of stuff we so rarely see. And for the Giants fans, they have got to be out of their skulls. Can’t imagine that when they fired Brian Daboll in the middle of the season after it didn’t work out and after they kicked the tires on Pat Shurmur, right? Kicked the tires on Ben, don’t call me Bob McAdoo.

After doing all of that with Joe Judge in between, that’s the bridge: Daboll, Judge, Shurmur, McAdoo to Coughlin. And in the middle of all that, an unfortunate boat trip prior to a wildcard weekend contest from which the Giants have not recovered since that time. This is exactly what the Giants fans wanted and needed, which is somebody saying, “You’ve had some issues around these parts. Let me bring what I do for a living to you,” which is why they sent him a private jet and apparently offered him five years, 100 million bucks. And he’s like, “So, sold.” Thank you. Sold.

Now, let’s not dive into the fact that the Giants just had five losses in 2025 in which they held a 10 or larger point lead in the game. And part of the reason why Harbaugh is available is because the head coach there in Baltimore, why he’s not there anymore, is because the owner essentially said in his press conference, “We’ve lost too many fourth quarter leads.” Let’s not go there, even though I kind of just did, because John Harbaugh will tell you things didn’t work out in the long run in Baltimore.

But the 18 seasons are exactly what the Giants fans want in, say, what, 10 with this guy. He’s in his early 60s. You want to get another 10 years out of John Harbaugh. Go on the sideline and just stop the carousel and searching for the next John Harbaugh. Honestly, the guy also knows the division. He went to Baltimore from the Eagles. He knows Andy Reid. He knows the whole business. He knows what it takes to win in this division. He knows what it takes to win in any division. He knows what it takes to win with a quarterback who can run it and throw it. He knows what it takes to win a division where you want to run the ball downhill with somebody who knows how to run downhill because that’s all he knows how to do, because he figures the defense is like a brick wall.

The guy who’s going to be coaching the tango and cash of the National Football League, Jackson Darton, Cam Scataboo. Tango and C. And then you throw in Malik Neighbors on top of it and a defense that can rush the passer with just four sets of hands in the dirt. That’s what the Giants want to do. Yeah. And John Harbaugh will know how to do it, and he’ll step up there with his Harbaugh demeanor and his Harbaugh smile, and he will charm the pants off of the New York media market. Certainly those who’ve been covering the Giants with a bunch of coaches that are trying to get their bones, trying to just even match what Tom Coughlin could do in his tenure there.

Grand slam, home run, touch them all. That’s it. And they can’t believe that John Harbaugh is available for them to fill this void. And fill it, he shall. Let’s go. Apparently, Todd Monkin’s coming, too. This is OC. Say what you will. Ravens fans will just fill your ears about what they didn’t like, how things went crazy. And Giants fans will be like, “So, did you make the playoffs that year?” “Yeah, we did.” “Did you win your division that year?” “Yeah, we did.” “Guess what we don’t do around here? Guess what hasn’t happened around here? And the fact that the owners like Joe Shane and he apparently is fine. Like, fine, let’s do it. Check boxes, man. And the Giants haven’t had a box checked like this in the head coaching department in a long time.

They hope they are getting Tom Coughlin part deaux....stability, discipline and a coach who knows what he’s doing...

Good young QB, but it’ll depend on how the draft and offseason trades and hires go. The Giants share that division with the Eagles, Cowboys, and Commanders, so his work is cut out for him.

With Mike Tomlin’s retirement or whatever, that’s nine HC vacancies this season. Harbaugh could have gone to any of the eight that hadn’t fired him.

Rich Eisen got cred wif’ you.? (I never heard of him)

I saw Civ and giants. I got excited and then immediately disappointed.