We should all get fired the way John Harbaugh got fired, with his employer’s competitors falling over themselves to hire him on the rebound. As it turned out, Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti did his now former head coach a pretty big favor.
He liberated Harbaugh to become the most coveted NFL coaching free agent in a long, long time, the subject of a wild recruiting battle that will intensify this week as Harbaugh starts meeting with franchises that made his final cut.
The Atlanta Falcons tried (and kinda failed) to get the jump on everyone Monday by completing the first official interview, though Matt Ryan’s conversation with the coach was not conducted in person. In fact, as of Monday evening, Harbaugh had conducted no formal in-person interviews, fueling speculation that he was waiting for Matt LaFleur to sign an extension in Green Bay.
If the Packers’ job opens up, maybe that’s game, set, match, partly because Harbaugh’s agent, Bryan Harlan, is a former Packers ballboy and the son of legendary Green Bay executive Bob Harlan. But assuming the Packers are off the board, Harbaugh has good reason to make the New York Giants his last team standing.
Longtime Giants executive Chris Mara told The Athletic that he met Harbaugh for lunch on Sunday and had an informal meeting with the coach at his Baltimore-area home. Multiple Giants officials, as well as people close to Harbaugh, say he remains very interested in the Giants’ job and has put them at or near the top of a very long list of possibilities. The sources were granted anonymity so they could speak freely.
Nine NFL franchises, including those without job openings, expressed interest in Harbaugh in the hours after he was cut from the Ravens, and the ensuing spectacle has already included enough plot twists and pundit commentary to compel a Harbaugh associate to say more than one chapter on the courtship would be needed in any future bio written by the coach.
At 63, Harbaugh has created a stir usually reserved for 20-year-old quarterbacks in the transfer portal. Seven NFL jobs outside of Baltimore remain wide open, and if he wanted to be, Harbaugh could be a leading contender for all of them.
I’ve always viewed the Falcons as the biggest threat to the Giants. Matt Ryan in charge, all-world player in Bijan Robinson and easiest road to a division title in an NFC South that was just won by an 8-9 team. https://t.co/LIrGWN7XHw
— Ian O’Connor (@Ian_OConnor) January 12, 2026
Could he now score an even bigger contract than his former boss in Philadelphia, Andy Reid, scored in Kansas City, where the Chiefs coach signed a five-year, $100 million extension in 2024?
“We all know Harbaugh is going to get his money no matter where he goes,” said one executive among the bidding teams. “So money is not going to be the issue here.”
No, fit is what is most essential. Harbaugh wants an organization wholly committed to providing him the program support and personnel influence — but not necessarily roster autonomy — required to win as consistently as he did in Baltimore.
The coach also wants a quarterback he can grow older with. Harbaugh won a Super Bowl with a pure pocket passer, Joe Flacco, and he developed a dual-threat blur, Lamar Jackson, into a two-time league MVP.
For Harbaugh, styles and skillsets at quarterback don’t matter as much as the burning daily desire to be great.
Along those lines, he has some intriguing options to choose from in Tennessee’s Cam Ward (No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft), the Giants’ Jaxson Dart (No. 25 in the same draft) and Atlanta’s Michael Penix Jr. (No. 8 in 2024). Coming off the third ACL injury of his college/pro career, Penix is harder to measure against a standard of future greatness than either Ward or Dart.
But in the big picture, when measuring these three teams and opportunities against one another, Harbaugh’s best play nearly a week after his stunning dismissal is the same as it was when this chaotic period started.
The Giants.
Somehow, some way, a franchise that has lost 38 of its last 51 games and 104 of its last 149 is the best match for a Super Bowl champ who won 193 games over 18 years in Baltimore, including the postseason.
For starters, Harbaugh would have the smallest possible shoes to fill. The four full-time head coaches the Giants have hired since escorting Tom Coughlin to the door were epic fails. The New York market puts enough pressure on a coach without the added burdens of following a local legend, so Harbaugh would be able to work his way into the gig. He can thank Brian Daboll, Joe Judge, Pat Shurmur, and Ben McAdoo for that.
Not that Harbaugh would be looking to rebuild with the Giants. Though he watched Dart and the Giants on video and came away thinking the 4-13 team from 2025 needed some obvious work, Harbaugh has told at least one person the film study gave him “a lot to be excited about.”
Jaxson Dart showed enough in his rookie year to impress John Harbaugh. (Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)
One other thing to be excited about: the idea of representing a storied franchise in the sport’s biggest market. Harbaugh wouldn’t want to say it for public consumption, of course, but he understands there’s a difference between being the head coach of the New York Giants and, say, the Arizona Cardinals. If he could win the Big One with the Giants to bookend the Super Bowl title he won with the 2012 Ravens, it would be a major jolt for his legacy and Hall-of-Fame odds.
Harbaugh is also known to love the idea of working for John Mara, a popular league elder known for his common decency. As he battles cancer, Mara wants to land a coach worthy of comparisons to Coughlin, who won two Super Bowls on the co-owner’s watch. The Giants need a CEO in a headset, and Harbaugh is the one.
That’s why embattled Giants general manager Joe Schoen has been working this recruitment as if his career depended on it. He has spoken directly with Harbaugh as part of the team’s near-constant contact with the coach’s camp that included Chris Mara’s Sunday sitdown with the candidate.
From the outside looking in, it might not make sense for a GM to romance a coach who would clearly take some of his authority over roster decisions.
But with a 13-38 record the last three seasons, Schoen is likely smart enough to understand that playing ball here could be very good for his career. Harbaugh can do for Schoen what Mike Vrabel did for Patriots executive Eliot Wolf. Namely, turn him into a winner.
Schoen knows that he is lucky to be working for Mara and Steve Tisch, majority owners who look for reasons to keep employees rather than for reasons to terminate them. The GM also knows that if his bosses want to hire Harbaugh, and they do, he had better make every accommodation to that end.
Harbaugh collaborated with Ozzie Newsome, one of the best GMs ever, and with Eric DeCosta, one of the best working today, to make a dozen postseason trips in Baltimore. The coach isn’t on any power trip, but he wants the influence over personnel that he’s earned the hard way. The Giants would be foolish to pay Harbaugh a ton of money and then not take full advantage of his expertise in the science of winning.
No, alignment shouldn’t be a problem here.
On other fronts, the Titans have Ward and a general manager, Mike Borgonzi, who was also schooled by Andy Reid. The Falcons have Ryan running the show, an incredible football player in Bijan Robinson and, most importantly, the easiest road to a division title in the NFC South, which was just won by 8-9 Carolina.
Both are compelling options. Harbaugh would succeed in either place because that’s what he does. Ditto for the Miami Dolphins and Harbaugh’s hometown team, the Cleveland Browns, who were still alive in this derby as of Monday evening.
But the Giants are the best available option. Even if Dart has questions to answer about his durability and play style, he is a dynamic quarterback who believes he can win multiple championships. Harbaugh likes that kind of confidence and the outsize challenge that New York represents.
This week, the Giants are expected to get a chance to formally offer their job to Harbaugh. He should take it.
