John Harbaugh Gives This NFL Hiring Cycle the Juice It Was Missing

The race is on to hire the former Ravens head coach, while Baltimore, with its two-time MVP quarterback, is the best job available

There currently are seven NFL head coach openings, including Baltimore’s. pic.twitter.com/ey5vYsLcrZ

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2026

It didn’t even take an hour. Just 45 minutes! Harbaugh’s agent heard from every team that was in the market for a head coach (and at least one more) in less time than it takes to watch (and be left disappointed by) the Stranger Things finale. Of course, it’s an agent’s job to drum up interest in their client by any means necessary, so we can’t just take that report at face value. But Harbaugh’s credentials certainly warrant the reported level of interest. In 18 seasons in Baltimore, the Ravens made the playoffs 12 times and won 24 postseason games, six division titles, and a Super Bowl. Of the other available candidates, only McCarthy can match any of those accomplishments

Harbaugh jumped straight to the top of every list of head coaching candidates (including ours), and it seems like he’ll be able to hand-pick his next stop. But when looking through all of the openings, there aren’t many obvious fits for the 63-year-old coach, who will surely be seeking a setup that allows him to win right away. The best job on the market is undoubtedly the one Harbaugh just lost. The Ravens head coaching job comes with a two-time MVP-winning quarterback, an acclaimed front office, a patient owner, and some of the best facilities you’ll find in the NFL. This isn’t just one of the best jobs in pro football; it’s one of the best jobs in all of sports. The opening of the Ravens gig is just as impactful for the hiring cycle as the availability of Harbaugh. Every available candidate should be lining up to interview with the team.

The pickings get slim after Baltimore, though. Especially for an accomplished coach like Harbaugh, who left the Ravens with his reputation in relatively good shape. Many of the openings are starter jobs or jobs more fit for retread coaches looking for one last shot at leading a team. 

The Titans can offer last year’s first pick, quarterback Cam Ward, who’s coming off an inefficient rookie season but put enough high-level throws on tape to make the job at least semi-attractive, particularly for an offensive-minded coach. But Tennessee cannot offer front office stability—or stability of any kind. The previous head coach, Brian Callahan, lasted only 23 games on the job, and the team is on its fourth general manager since 2022. Harbaugh just left a team that has been run by the same brain trust for two decades. And I’m not sure it makes sense for a team trying to develop a young passer to hire someone with no experience coaching on the offensive side of the ball. Pairing Ward with someone who has experience working with quarterbacks—though preferably not Nagy, who failed to develop first-round pick Mitchell Trubisky in Chicago, or Garrett—would make a lot more sense for the Titans. This would be a bad pairing for both sides. 

The Cardinals can’t offer stability, either. Ken Whisenhunt’s five-year stint is the longest a head coach has lasted with the franchise in the Super Bowl era. You’d have to go back to Jimmy Conzelman’s WWII-era run to find a longer coaching tenure for the club. The front office is led by lame duck general manager Monti Ossenfort, who has won 15 games in three years, and instead of a young, promising quarterback, the Cardinals have an expensive, disgruntled one. I’d be shocked if Harbaugh even grants them an interview. 

Tom Brady’s presence in Las Vegas could convince Harbaugh to hear the Raiders out, but not if he checked out Kalyn Kahler and Ryan McFadden’s deep dive into the organizational dysfunction for ESPN. There are a lot of concerning details in there, but the main takeaway is that Brady and Las Vegas GM/his college buddy John Spytek may be in over their heads when it comes to running an NFL franchise. And as Pete Carroll found out this past season, the roster is years away from winning. 

The Browns … do I really have to explain why Harbaugh should stay away?   

That leaves just the Giants and Falcons, and New York has emerged as the favorite to land Harbaugh, given the tradition and reputation of the organization. From the team’s perspective, hiring Harbaugh would be a no-brainer. The Giants are desperate for a proven head coach after trying (and comically failing) to hire an up-and-comer with no prior head coaching experience. They tried the offensive play caller thing with Ben McAdoo, who made the playoffs on the back of a stout defense before fizzling out when the defense regressed and the offense continued to stink. They tried the culture builder thing by hiring Joe Judge away from his post as New England’s special teams coordinator, and that failed almost immediately. Then they went for the QB-whisperer archetype with Brian Daboll, who showed promise early but eventually wore out his welcome and was fired in November after going 20-40-1 over four seasons. 

More on the NFL Coaching Carousel

More on the NFL Coaching Carousel

The Giants haven’t been able to identify the next big thing, so they should just go with what’s worked in the past. That’s a CEO-style coach in the mold of Tom Coughlin, who hadn’t won a ring before getting to New York but had built the expansion Jaguars into a winner, making two AFC title games in the late 1990s, before salary cap problems nuked the roster. Harbaugh fits the Coughlin mold. 

Harbaugh makes sense for the Giants, but I’m not sure the Giants make sense for Harbaugh. He’d be working with a general manager who is likely on his way out and a tremendously flawed and expensive roster. He’d also be competing with the Eagles (and the Cowboys, to a lesser extent) every year for the division. The Eli Manning era showed that you can win in New York, but the 2007 and 2011 championship-winning teams were lightning-in-a-bottle situations. Under John Mara’s leadership, which started in 2005 after Wellington Mara’s death, the Giants haven’t built a truly dominant team. And over the past decade, the franchise has cycled through as many head coaches and general managers as you’d expect from a team that is considered poorly run. 

Atlanta could be Harbaugh’s best shot at winning quickly. The roster is full of young talent, on both sides of the ball, and while the quarterback is still a question mark, with Michael Penix Jr. recovering from his third ACL tear and the team facing a big decision in March about whether to keep Kirk Cousins, Harbaugh would get to start his tenure with a new general manager and revamped front office. In Arthur Blank, he’d be working under one of the most influential owners in the league, one who is clearly motivated to win now. Atlanta just finished in a three-way tie for first place in the NFC South and might be considered the favorite to win the division outright in 2026 without much tinkering with the roster. 

None of the current openings are very attractive, but other teams could come calling if we’re to take Harbaugh’s agent at his word. The Dolphins are reportedly committed to bringing Mike McDaniel back another season—and have lined up interviews with a bunch of his former coworkers for their vacant GM job—but are also reportedly asking those candidates for thoughts on potential head coaching hires. Now that a coaching star like Harbaugh is on the market, Miami may reconsider its lukewarm commitment to McDaniel. But would a team get rid of a legitimately good offensive play caller for a guy with no real play calling expertise on either side of the ball? Swapping a scheme lord like McDaniel for a CEO like Harbaugh would run counter to the recent hiring trends across the league. And on paper, Harbaugh is a better coach. In practice, in 2026, I’m not so sure. 

The Buccaneers wouldn’t have to move on from a young offensive mind to bring in Harbaugh, and coach Todd Bowles’s seat is definitely hotter after the Buccaneers collapsed down the stretch and let the Panthers walk them down for the division title. Tampa Bay has plenty of talent, a respected general manager with staying power, and two Super Bowl wins this century. The Bucs job isn’t the Ravens job, but of the realistic options for Harbaugh, it might be the closest thing, should the Glazer family change its mind on keeping Bowles for 2026. 

If we lower the bar to “somewhat plausible,” the most intriguing landing spot for Harbaugh would be Philadelphia. The Eagles would have to go crashing out of the playoffs in embarrassing fashion to even consider moving on from a coach who’s won a Super Bowl in the last calendar year, but after Nick Sirianni gave away the 2-seed in the NFC this past weekend, a one-and-done is within the range of outcomes. The fan base wouldn’t bat an eye if general manager Howie Roseman fired Sirianni. It didn’t when he moved on from Doug Pederson just a few years after he won Philly its first Super Bowl. And the fan base isn’t happy with Sirianni after he and his hand-picked offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo, made a mess of the offense in 2025. Like Harbaugh, Sirianni isn’t known for his play calling chops. He was hired to maintain the vibes in the locker room, and even when the team was flying high last season, the vibes weren’t great. If Philadelphia wants a CEO-style head coach, Harbaugh would be the better option. And given his ties to the team—he was the Eagles’ special teams coordinator before jumping to Baltimore—Harbaugh would likely jump at the chance. 

That would be an unprecedented move for Philadelphia. It would be risky for even Miami or Tampa Bay to part ways with qualified coaches on the off chance that Harbaugh would agree to fill their vacancies rather than take a job in New York or Atlanta. But nobody would be shocked if any of those teams ditched their guy to hire a coach like Harbaugh. 

Anything is on the table now that a coach of Harbaugh’s repute is out there. His firing instantly turned one of the most boring hiring cycles in recent memory into perhaps the most fascinating one in the history of the league.

Steven Ruiz

Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.