The Ravens fired John Harbaugh. Can the Giants convince him to save their franchise?
Darius Slayton is the one of the most thoughtful professional athletes to ever wear a uniform in this market, and so when the Giants receiver was asked what the team needed in its next head coach, he took a long pause before delivering the perfect answer.
“Somebody who’s Tom Coughlin-esque,” Slayton said, referring, of course, to the last man to lead this franchise to a parade through lower Manhattan. Slayton never had a chance to play for Coughlin, nor has he had anything resembling the two-time Super Bowl winner as his locker room leader since joining this franchise. But he understands the qualities that name represents.
Leadership. Integrity. A commanding presence, on the sideline and in the locker room. The Giants had that when they won each of their four championships, in Coughlin and Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells. They’ve been searching for it ever since ownership nudged Coughlin into retirement — but maybe, if they’re smart, they have an opportunity now to get it again.
The Baltimore Ravens did the unthinkable on Tuesday evening. They fired John Harbaugh, a Super Bowl-winning coach with a .614 winning percentage to show for his 18 seasons on the job. The man who helped turn Lamar Jackson into a two-time MVP immediately vaults to the top of the Giants list as they try to replace Brian Daboll, and the only question, really, is whether Harbaugh would want the job.
Harbaugh doesn’t have to coach next season. He’ll have plenty of options in television, and if he wants to sit on a beach for the entire 2026 season, he can do so rest assured that he’ll remain the top candidate for any vacancies that open this time next year. Teams may create those openings with him in mind — ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported on Tuesday night that at least one team with a currently employed coach reached out to his camp.
I remain miiiiiighty skeptical that a man with his track record will want to take the helm of a franchise with a 13-38 record over the past three years and with evidence of dysfunction throughout team headquarters. The prospect of coaching a talented, mobile quarterback in Jaxson Dart might be appealing, but the Giants still have a roster filled with holes and a general manager who hasn’t shown the aptitude to fill the correctly.
Will Harbaugh want to work for Joe Schoen? That’s the obvious question, of course. But who says he has to? What if Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch brought him to East Rutherford, sat him down in team headquarters and made it clear that the keys to the franchise were his and his entirely?
The Giants should let Harbaugh hand pick his personnel staff. If that means Schoen is elbowed out the top job a few days after he praised ownership for letting him “stub his toe” on decisions, well, no one is going to quibble over the details. They can make Schoen a “special advisor” or something like that. A new nameplate will only cost a few bucks.
There are ways around this!
None of the four men who followed Coughlin into this difficult job — Ben MacAdoo, Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll — cast the kind of presence required to succeed at this job. From MacAdoo’s ill-fitted suit, to Judge’s rambling press conferences, to Daboll’s childish sideline tantrums, the men who have held this job since 2016 have always felt like they were play-acting in an off-Broadway production called “Hey, Look at Me, Mom: I’m an NFL Head Coach!”
I still think Kevin Stefanski would be an excellent choice given his offensive background and his early success turning a broken franchise into a playoff team. According to reports, the Giants are still scheduled to interview the former Browns head coach on Wednesday, and until there’s white smoke out of Harbaugh’s camp to the contrary, I think he’s the best bet to be introduced as the team’s next head coach.
It’s nice to have multiple good options. But Harbaugh presents an unexpected opportunity, and the Giants owe it to their fans to do everything possible to bring this proven winner to New Jersey. Heck, let him come up with the title on Joe Schoen’s new nameplate. What does this team have to lose?
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Category: General Sports
