Bill Barnwell, ESPN Staff Writer January 24, 2024, 11:55 p.m. ET
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- Bill Barnwell is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. He analyzes football on and off the field like no one else on the planet, writing about in-season Xs and Os, off-season transactions and much more.
He is the host of the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, whose episodes are released once a week. Barnwell joined ESPN in 2011 as a staff writer at Grantland. Follow him on Twitter here: @billbarnwell.
If you need to hire a head coach, hiring the reigning national champion seems like a good place to start. The Los Angeles Chargers got their man on Wednesday, hiring Jim Harbaugh from Michigan to take over. After nine seasons at the collegiate level, Harbaugh returns to the NFL, where he posted a 44-19-1 record in four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers from 2011 to 2014.
I'll start with the conclusion: This is a great take. Of course, things can go haywire on all sides in the NFL, but if the Chargers wanted to hire someone to rebuild their organization, Harbaugh had to be the most qualified candidate available, just ahead of former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. And if Harbaugh ever wanted to return to the NFL, this seems to be the place for him. However, there is still work to be done, and what happens next for LA could be even more intriguing than the hiring.
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Let's first look at this attitude from the perspective of both sides. Why does this fit so well?
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Harbaugh fits the Chargers
The Chargers' reasons for wanting him
The upcoming decisions that need to be clarified
The Harbaugh site
Two years ago, Harbaugh interviewed with the Vikings, lost the position to Kevin O'Connell and said “this is the last time” he would pursue an NFL position. He had a video meeting with the Broncos last year before withdrawing from the race for the Denver job. This year, after winning a national championship, the lure of the NFL and the chance to win a Super Bowl was apparently too great.
If Harbaugh were to pursue an NFL job, the opportunity with the Chargers clearly seems like the type of role that best fits what he might expect if given a chance. Even without taking into account the completed deals in Michigan, he and the Chargers are a better fit than they were in previous openings in Minnesota and Denver. I had reservations about the LA opener when I ranked it as the No. 2 likely opener earlier this offseason, but there were elements that should appeal to Harbaugh, especially given what happened during his first tenure in the league.
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First of all, there is already a franchise quarterback. Harbaugh will inherit a 25-year-old young star in Justin Herbert, who, however, has not yet made the leap from very good quarterback to superstar. Almost everyone believes Herbert can make this leap, and I'm sure his new coach wouldn't have taken the job if he hadn't felt the same way.
From the coach's perspective, the last time he would have had such a good quarterback to tutor would be when he coached Andrew Luck at Stanford. When Harbaugh took the 49ers job, he inherited Alex Smith and selected Colin Kaepernick in the second round. Smith started in 2011 before Kaepernick took the job in 2012. The 49ers also traded for Blaine Gabbert after the coach had long-held interest in the 2011 first-round pick, although Gabbert only started a game for San Francisco after Harbaugh had left for Michigan.
While there was speculation that Harbaugh might take over a team like the Falcons and sign JJ McCarthy, his quarterback from Michigan, the decision to take over the Chargers certainly ends that train of thought. Herbert hasn't even started the new season of his five-year, $262.5 million contract extension, and the team wouldn't be able to handle the $108.5 million in dead money in a trade . Harbaugh won't be seeing his title-winning quarterback again any time soon.
The other element that would likely be most valuable to Harbaugh is personnel control. He is known to have distanced himself from general manager Trent Baalke during their shared tenure with the 49ers, which caused tension between the coach and both Baalke and the team's owners. After the team lost three straight games in 2014 and fell to 7-7, the organization told Harbaugh he would not be returning. He finished the season, and although the 49ers called it a farewell, he believed he had been fired.
The 49ers chose Baalke over Harbaugh with disastrous results, as they traded on Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly with dismal results before trading on Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch in 2017. It was always difficult for Harbaugh to join an organization where a current general manager had power like Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in Minnesota and George Paton in Denver. Most teams in the NFL are simply unwilling to cede control of coaching and personnel to one person, and two of the coaches who were given both responsibilities (Belichick and Pete Carroll) were fired earlier this month.
After the Chargers fired Tom Telesco in December, Los Angeles no longer has a general manager in the building. They hired Harbaugh before choosing their general manager, which seems telling. At a minimum, whoever handles personnel duties must be comfortable with Harbaugh as coach, while Harbaugh should have the opportunity to say whether he will be comfortable with Dean Spanos' preferred candidate team owner. However, when push comes to shove, his status as a preferred candidate and the first of the two to join the organization suggests that the coach will impose his will, not whoever ends up as general manager.
Of the eight openings available this offseason, the Chargers may have been the only one that could provide some level of personnel control. The existing general managers of the Titans and Seahawks assumed more power after their coaches were fired. The commanders were in the process of hiring a general manager. The Patriots, Raiders and Panthers have let one coaching staff take control in recent years, with disappointing results. The Falcons might have been willing to let a new coach decide on Terry Fontenot, but LA was the only franchise that had a clear starting position and nothing stood in the way of a coach with significant power.
Harbaugh also lands in a destination where recruiting will be easy. California doesn't offer the same income tax-free benefits as warm-weather states like Texas and Florida for players, but Los Angeles has been a highly desirable destination for free agents in all major American sports for decades. Beyond the big names, the Rams were able to entice players to sign for less money than they likely would have gotten elsewhere. That could be a big name late in his career, like Clay Matthews or Bobby Wagner, or a lesser-known player like Ahkello Witherspoon, who played almost the minimum this season and had an outstanding year for the Rams. Harbaugh should have no problem selling players in LA
The Chargers side
While beating the Rams hearts and minds in Los Angeles shouldn't be Spanos' primary goal, it still has to feel like one of the few things the Chargers could do to get noticed. They spent most of their time in Los Angeles as an unwanted sideline amid Sean McVay and the Rams' steady streak of success. Their home games are typically overrun by fans of the opposing team, both of whom can take a warm-weather outing to support their team while knowing they'll likely be surrounded by more teammates than Chargers fans. People aren't going to suddenly love this team because Harbaugh is there, but if Herbert doesn't make a difference, the only thing that could help the Chargers in Los Angeles long-term might be a coach who wins consistently.
The expectation for Harbaugh should be that he will turn the ship around. In 2004, Harbaugh took over a University of San Diego team that had never won double-digit games and coached them there in his second and third seasons. He then took over a 1-11 Stanford team in 2007, posted a winning record in third grade and went 12-1 in his fourth and final season with the school. And although it took six years before he truly competed for a national title with Michigan, he took over a 5-7 team from Brady Hoke and immediately got it to 10 wins, a mark Harbaugh achieved in six of eight full seasons in Ann reached arbor.
He may have achieved the most impressive turnaround with the 49ers. After cap issues and subpar drafting finally doomed the dynasty that began in the Bill Walsh era, they wandered the wilderness for nearly a decade. They went 9-23 against Dennis Erickson, 18-37 against Mike Nolan and 18-22 against Mike Singletary, all while posting no winning seasons.
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Singletary was released late in the 2010 season, a year where the most memorable moment probably came in Week 5. Smith, the team's No. 1 overall pick in 2005, started 0-4 under center. Amid an ugly performance against the Eagles, fans booed Smith off the field and chanted “We Want Carr,” a reference to David Carr, who hadn't played a game since 2007. Smith eventually lost his job due to an injury to Troy Smith, who held the role before it returned to Alex Smith at the end of the season. He was a free agent and it seemed like it was time for a clean break between the highly touted prospect and the 49ers.
Instead, Harbaugh brought Smith back, although that didn't happen until July due to the lockout. He immediately transformed into a different quarterback. Smith lowered his interception rate from 2.9% to a league-best 1.1% and surpassed a 60% completion rate and 7.0 yards per attempt for the first time in his professional career. A quarterback who had gone 19-31 in six professional seasons went 13-3. The same fans who had booed Smith off the field a year earlier cheered their quarterback as he battled Drew Brees shot for shot in one of the greatest playoff games in league history, culminating in a final-minute touchdown pass to Vernon Davis for a famous 49ers victory. The organization that Smith described as “dysfunctional” and a locker room that had been “very segregated” suddenly coalesced around Harbaugh.
A year later, Harbaugh made it to the Super Bowl, but not with Smith at center. Kaepernick, a second-round pick out of Nevada, had survived a Pistol offense that didn't look much like an NFL offense at the time. (The Chiefs used the pistol with Tyler Thigpen out of necessity due to injuries in 2008, but it didn't stick.) Kaepernick was considered a rookie at the time, a guy whose physical skills translated more to the NFL than his tape.
Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman instead built their offense around Kaepernick's dual skills as a passer and runner, which allowed him to practice at a pro level with the pistol. In a season where Robert Griffin shined with the zone read and other zone concepts for Washington, Roman built a more gap-heavy quarterback run game for Kaepernick, who also put up eye-popping numbers as a passer. Kaepernick's 263 passing yard and 181 rushing yard performance against the Packers in the divisional round was one of the most dominant performances I've ever seen from a quarterback in the league, and he brought the 49ers just shy of winning Super Bowl XLVII approach.
Beyond the quarterbacks, there were so many players who either improved on their previous performances with the 49ers or excelled after arriving in San Francisco. Harbaugh got the best out of Alex Boone, Michael Crabtree, NaVorro Bowman, Chris Borland and Tarell Brown. Imports like Carlos Rogers, Donte Whitner and Ahmad Brooks were better with the 49ers than in their previous stints. The Chargers have a class of players they hope to see more of in 2024, including high draft picks Zion Johnson, Asante Samuel Jr. and Quentin Johnston. Harbaugh's work to maximize talent in San Francisco gives hope that he can bring everyone on the same page in Los Angeles.
2:10
Stephen A.: The Chargers made the smart move of hiring Harbaugh
Stephen A. Smith explains why he believes Jim Harbaugh is the right candidate for the Chargers' head coaching job.
In 2012, I wrote that Harbaugh might be the most valuable person in the NFL. When reports surfaced in February 2014 that the Browns were trying to trade for Harbaugh since he was making $5 million a year at the time, I suggested he was underpaid by half and worth two first-round picks in a deal . The Chargers get him for just $1.5 million. Even if you allow that things went wrong for Harbaugh in 2014, this is an incredible opportunity for this franchise. I would buy it cheap, but can you really buy someone cheap who just won a championship?
What’s next for Harbaugh and the Chargers?
Here's the part I find so fascinating. This should already be a transitional year for the Chargers' roster considering they are $44 million over the projected salary cap without re-signing starters Austin Ekeler, Gerald Everett and Kenneth Murray. Some of these players will not be back and Corey Linsley may be forced to retire due to illness. Khalil Mack and Keenan Allen have huge cap numbers and are on the wrong side of 30. Harbaugh will have to decide whether to keep them with new contracts to reduce their cap hits or go younger at key positions .
The next big question for Harbaugh and the Chargers is who he hires as his coordinators. He sent Mike Macdonald, the Ravens' defensive coordinator, into the league from Michigan, a head coaching candidate who will either get a manager's job somewhere or be prevented by Baltimore from following his old boss to Los Angeles. The more logical candidate is Macdonald's successor, Jesse Minter, who helped the Wolverines post a national-best 10.4 points per game this season.
Before Wednesday, Minter would have been an obvious choice to join Harbaugh. However, a few hours before Harbaugh was hired, it was announced that the Dolphins would be parting ways with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio after just one season. Fangio is considered one of the best defensive coaches in all of football, and Miami led the league in defensive points added (EPA) per game over a 10-week period after Jalen Ramsey's return and before all edge rushers suffered injuries . However, Fangio didn't seem to fit in the locker room.
Fangio has reportedly been linked to the Eagles, where he would replace Sean Desai and Matt Patricia, but how about a reunion with Harbaugh? Fangio was Harbaugh's defensive coordinator in San Francisco, where the 49ers were among the top three in scoring defense in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The Chargers ran a version of the Fangio defense under Brandon Staley and never seemed to get things right, but the roster is already built to play that style and perhaps Fangio would be better at coaching that talent than Staley.
Harbaugh's coordinator on the other side of the ball from his time in San Francisco is also available. Greg Roman followed Harbaugh from Stanford to the 49ers, where he served as offensive coordinator for four seasons. was a novel one of several playcallers in San Francisco during that period, with Harbaugh overseeing the operation and having the right to override calls.
Since then, Roman has played for the Bills and Ravens. At the latter stop, a Roman-initiated offense that closely resembled an expanded version of the attack he ran with Kaepernick in San Francisco helped Lamar Jackson to an MVP season in 2019. Roman's offense seemed to run out of steam and the switch Replacing him with Todd Monken as offensive coordinator appears to have opened up a new level for Jackson as a passer, who is expected to win his second MVP award this season.
The idea of using Roman as a coordinator for Kaepernick in San Francisco, Jackson in Baltimore and Tyrod Taylor in Buffalo made sense considering how strong a part of the running game they would be in addition to what they offered as a passer. Herbert can fight and is tough, but the Chargers probably don't want their franchise quarterback playing QB power five times a game. Chargers fans who have seen Jackson thrive in a more diverse passing attack after perhaps being stifled at times under Roman understandably don't want that with Herbert.
Instead, I'd like to point out that Roman and Harbaugh persuaded Smith in 2011 to have a career-changing year to date. The 49ers used Smith as a runner at times, with that famous third-down sweep for a touchdown in the playoff win. The Saints were the most notable example, but they ran a more conventional passing attack with Smith than I can remember. If Roman can do that with Smith, he (and Harbaugh) should have no trouble building a cohesive offense with Herbert's diverse talents.
On the other hand, the incumbent should have a reasonable case here. Kellen Moore had the Chargers ranked in the top quarter of the league in both EPA per game (fifth) and points scored per drive (seventh) in the first half of the season before injury sidelined them in the second half of the year. Moore was a hot candidate for head coach after his run with the Cowboys, and while Dak Prescott arguably had his best season after Mike McCarthy moved on from Moore last offseason, Moore was accepted by the Chargers to take over as head coach during this one interviewed during the process.
Ownership also prevented Moore from talking to the Bears about her role as offensive coordinator before Chicago hired Shane Waldron, a decision that seems telling about how much they value the 34-year-old. Harbaugh won't be forced to hire an offensive coordinator he doesn't want, but there's a chance Moore stays in Los Angeles next season with a new coach.
While the Harbaugh signing should be viewed as a victory for the Chargers after such a disappointing season, there is still a lot of work to be done here. The identity of the coordinators could tell us how aggressively he plans to rebuild the roster, while serious decisions need to be made on veteran starters in the coming weeks. The last time he took an NFL job, he suffered a lockout before immediately building a 6-10 team that had been disappointing for a decade into a Super Bowl contender. Now, with a full offseason ahead of us, Harbaugh will look to take down a 5-12 team that has been underwhelming for even longer and repeat the feat. This should be fun.