Jim Harbaugh NFL coaching rumors, explained, with latest intel and history of interest

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Is this the year Jim Harbaugh finally returns to the NFL?

Jim Harbaugh has the Michigan Wolverines in the national championship game of the College Football Playoff against the Washington Huskies in the first major sports event of 2024. While Michigan plays for its first national title since its 1997 split with Nebraska, rumors connecting Harbaugh to the NFL have grown louder than ever.

Harbaugh received multiple suspensions this season. Cheating allegations have hung over the program in the form of a sign-stealing scheme engineered by former offensive analyst Connor Stalions. As Michigan has kept winning to put itself in the final college football game of the year, there’s renewed momentum connecting Harbaugh to the NFL after this season.

The Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders both want Harbaugh this season, according to The Athletic, with the coach also having interest in LA. The Washington Commanders are also interested in Harbaugh after finally firing Ron Rivera as head coach on Black Monday, according to reports. More teams may join the fray as the NFL’s end-of-season team interviews play out.

The NFL spotlight feels like it’s shining brighter than ever on Harbaugh heading into the national championship. In reality, Harbaugh-to-the-NFL rumors have been an annual occurrence for years.

Latest Jim Harbaugh NFL coaching rumors

The Commanders have interest in Harbaugh after firing head coach Ron Rivera on Monday, according to Bleacher Report’s Jordan Schultz. Former Golden State Warriors executive Bob Myers is working with the Commanders as an advisor during the offseason, and has reached out to Harbaugh’s agent to gauge his interest.
There’s been rampant speculation about Harbaugh going to the Los Angeles Chargers inside the NFL, according to The Athletic. “They want Harbaugh, and he wants them,” a veteran coach said of the Chargers to The Athletic.

Almost since the moment Jim Harbaugh returned to Ann Arbor to coach his alma mater, the stories surfaced.

No, not stories regarding controversy or suspensions, but rather breathless speculation about when, not if, Harbaugh would return to the NFL.

Such reports surfaced in the middle of his first year at Michigan. During the fall of 2015, two potential NFL landing spots emerged for his services: The Miami Dolphins, after they fired Joe Philbin after a 1-3 start, and the Indianapolis Colts, who was reportedly in the midst of a feud with management.

Some went as far as to guarantee that Harbaugh would be in Indianapolis in 2016, reunited with Andrew Luck. Harbaugh coached Luck at Stanford.

The rumors persisted throughout October of 2015, forcing Harbaugh to finally address them. Remember Michigan’s stunning loss to Michigan State that year, on a botched punt during the game’s final play? The coach felt compelled to address the NFL rumors after that loss, in addition to … (/gestures in the general direction of everything else he had to address after that loss.)

“I won’t comment on it; it’s disrespectful to the game,” said Harbaugh at the time. “I look at it as disrespectful.”

Unfortunately for Harbaugh the “disrespectful” rumors were just getting started.

Because the following season, the cycle continued. An NFL job opened up, and Harbaugh was immediately linked to the spot. This time it was in Los Angeles, where the Rams parted ways with head coach Jeff Fisher in December of 2016. Would Harbaugh want to jump back to the NFC West, with a chance to play — and beat — the 49ers twice a season? The storylines wrote themselves. The Harbaugh-to-LA story was considered a “very real possibility.”

Once more, Harbaugh pushed back. Harder this time. Speaking to his team, he called the rumors “lies made up by our enemies:”

“He addressed it to us yesterday,” senior defensive end Chris Wormley told Wolverine247. “I couldn’t see any reason why he would want to leave here anyways. He loves it here. I can’t see him leaving anytime soon.”

Senior defensive tackle Ryan Glasgow, who announced he will play in the Senior Bowl next month on Tuesday, said Harbaugh addressed the rumors vigorously and directly with the team.

“He said ‘Look guys, short, sweet, to the point, I’m not leaving, don’t worry about it’. These are lies made up by our enemies’,” Glasgow said during the team’s bust on Tuesday night. “It got the team riled up. We don’t want any enemies infiltrating our fortress.”

Shortly, 2016 became 2017, and the cycle began anew.

Michigan began the 2017 season with four-straight wins, rising to No. 7 in the rankings. But losses to Michigan State and Penn State over the course of three weeks in October put a huge dent in their aspirations for the season. They climbed back into the top-25, but finished the year with three-straight losses, two to Wisconsin and Ohio State (a pair of top-10 ranked teams) and then to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl.

But as Michigan’s season wound down, the NFL rumors kicked up again. Jason LaCanfora of CBS Sports outlined a number of landing sports for Harbaugh, writing that “he is hardly off the NFL radar since returning to college coaching, and some close to the coach believe a return to the NFL at some point is inevitable.”

Reports even surfaced of a potential trade between the 49ers and the Cleveland Browns for Harbaugh back in the fall of 2014, which the coach eventually nixed because he thought better opportunities would be available at the end of the season. But with the Browns limping to an 0-16 record, parting ways with Hue Jackson was a possibility, which resurfaced the Harbaugh-to-Cleveland idea. Other options such as the New York Giants and the Oakland Raiders were mentioned.

So, ahead of the Outback Bowl, Harbaugh performed what had become an annual ritual, and brushed the NFL rumors aside.

“That’s like warmed up oatmeal,” Harbaugh said at the time. “(I can compare) it to something else. When it’s rehashed or warmed up, it’s not good anymore. Oatmeal. That’s the first thing that comes to mind.

“I’m not a big fan of warmed up oatmeal.”

You can probably see the pattern forming, so let’s turn to 2018. Michigan lost at Notre Dame to open the season, but rattled off 10-straight wins to improve to 10-1, ahead of their annual clash with Ohio State. The Wolverines were ranked No. 4 for that game, with the Buckeyes coming in as the No. 10 team in the nation.

Ohio State hung 62 on the Wolverines in the 115th installment of “The Game,” as the Buckeyes won by a final score of 62-39. While both Ohio State and Michigan finished with 8-1 records in Big Ten play — which made the teams co-champions of the Big Ten East, Michigan’s first division title — Ohio State went on to the Big Ten Championship Game, while the Wolverines headed to the Peach Bowl.

After the loss to Ohio State, the NFL rumors started:

Harbaugh again shot down the rumors, linking them to an attempt to hurt him and Michigan during recruiting season.

“This is a choreographed message that comes up at this time every year before signing day,” Harbaugh told ESPN at the time. “It’s people spreading messages to further their own personal agenda. But I’m on record right here, right now: I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying at Michigan. We have big plans here, and there’s a lot we want to accomplish.

“I can’t be any more clear about this — it’s not true. I’m not going anywhere.”

The pattern played out again in 2019. The Wolverines began the year ranked in the top-10, suffered a few losses during the season, lost to Ohio State, and Harbaugh was forced to dismiss rumors of an “exit strategy” and a return to the NFL. After Joel Klatt of FOX Sports speculated that Harbaugh might eve retire, reports emerged that the coach was eying an “exit strategy” from Michigan, and that his representatives were contacting NFL teams.

The coach dismissed those reports in a letter to parents of Michigan players:

Then in 2020 everything changed.

Literally, well, everything.

COVID-19 upended the world, truncated the Big Ten season, and Michigan limped to a 2-4 finish. That quieted the NFL rumors for a while.

But not for good.

Because in 2021 Michigan was good. Very good. The Wolverines began the year unranked, but stormed through the Big Ten East, rising to No. 6 in the rankings ahead of a huge game at Michigan State, when the Spartans were ranked No. 8.

Michigan lost that game, but only fell to No. 7 in the rankings. They won their next three games, setting up a huge contest against Ohio State in that year’s installment of “The Game.” The Wolverines were No. 5, and the Buckeyes were No. 2.

That year in Ann Arbor, Harbaugh got his big win over Ohio State.

That victory catapulted Michigan into the Big Ten Championship Game, and their ensuing win over Iowa put the Wolverines into the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history. While Michigan lost to Georgia by a final score of 34-11, the Wolverines were back.

So too were the “Harbaugh to the NFL” rumors.

Only this time, they were more than just rumors. Harbaugh interviewed for the vacant Minnesota Vikings job.

“There was a tugging at me that I was once that close to a Super Bowl and I didn’t get it. Some NFL jobs came open. I was contacted by the (Minnesota) Vikings,” Harbaugh told Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press back in February of 2022.

“For better or for worse, it was something I wanted to explore. I went in thinking, ‘I’m gonna have 100 percent conviction on this, and if they (Minnesota) have 100 percent conviction on this, then it’s something I’m gonna do.”

However, during the process Harbaugh decided his heart was still in Ann Arbor.

“I called Warde (Manuel, the Michigan athletic director) and I asked him if he wanted me to be the head coach. And he said, ‘Yes, 100 percent.’ And I said, OK then. That’s what I want to do.’ “And I told him, ‘Warde, this will not be a reoccurring theme every year. This was a one-time thing,” Harbaugh said to Albom.

Only … the rumors returned during the 2022 season. Michigan made another run to the College Football Playoff — beating Ohio State again — yet lost to TCU. As the Wolverines season unfolded, story after story was written about Harbaugh making a return to the NFL. It was also outlined that the deal Harbaugh inked with Michigan after his interview with the Vikings contained just a $3 million buyout in year one, which might make it the ideal time for Harbaugh to leave.

Harbaugh said ahead of the Fiesta Bowl that he would be “enthusiastically” coaching Michigan in 2023, but the loss to the Horned Frogs kicked the rumors into overdrive. The Athletic reported that it would be a “done deal” if Harbaugh was offered an NFL job, and Harbaugh reportedly had a “conversation” — but not a technical interview — with Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper in early 2023.

Then came reports that Harbaugh had met with the new ownership group of the Denver Broncos regarding their vacant head coach position:

Ultimately, the Broncos went with Sean Payton, the Panthers went with Frank Reich, and Harbaugh was back at Michigan for the 2023 season. He put out a statement to that effect early in 2023. “I love the relationships that I have at Michigan — coaches, staff, families, administration, president Santa Ono and especially the players and their families,” Harbaugh said in a statement. “My heart is at the University of Michigan. I once heard a wise man say, ‘Don’t try to out-happy, happy.’ Go Blue!”

But to say this has been a typical season for the Wolverines would be misleading. After all, Harbaugh has served a pair of suspensions, and the Wolverines are on the cusp of winning their first title with him at the helm.

Could this now be the year he makes the leap back to the NFL?

If you look around the current NFL landscape, there are certainly some options for him should he entertain a return to the league. The Panthers are again looking for a head coach, and Tepper could take another run at Harbaugh. The Los Angeles Chargers are another landing spot, and Harbaugh could be enticed by the chance to coach Justin Herbert. Then there are some potential landing spots that could open up in the next few days, including the Chicago Bears, where Harbaugh was once a player.

And maybe, just maybe, the New England Patriots.

Michigan might think this is the year that Harbaugh makes the leap. The school is reportedly looking to ink Harbaugh to a new 10-year deal, but one that contains a clause where the NFL is a no-go for the coach for 2024. Harbaugh was asked about the NFL rumors ahead of the Rose Bowl, and largely evaded the question:

He did the same after Michigan’s thrilling win over Alabama. “My future consists of a happy flight back to Ann Arbor, Michigan,” Harbaugh said after beating the Crimson Tide. “Can’t wait.”

In the days since the Rose Bowl, more stories have emerged about Harbaugh potentially heading to the NFL. Speaking with Rich Eisen last week, NFL Network reporter Tom Pelissero outlined the options that may await Harbaugh in the NFL. Then on the final Sunday of the NFL regular season, fellow NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport made it clear that multiple NFL teams will be interested, and that Harbaugh will be “open” to the move.

Of course, as we just outlined this is not exactly new ground for Harbaugh. Only this time it feels a little different.

Why?

Remember a few thousand words ago, when Harbaugh once shot down reports of a return to the NFL by noting that he did not have “representation?”

Over the weekend it was reported that now, he does. In the form of Don Yee, an agent whose clients include Tom Brady and Sean Payton.

So, is this the year the rumors finally come true?

We might know more in a few short days.