The Ravens finally will be conducting an end-of-season press conference with coach John Harbaugh. Which necessarily means that Harbaugh finally has his new contract in place.
The team has announced that Harbaugh will meet the media at 11:00 a.m. ET on Friday. He wouldn’t be doing it if his new contract wasn’t done.
Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com reports that the deal is indeed done. And it will be interesting to learn the details of the deal, if they ever are leaked.
Although no salary cap applies to coaches, the pay scale for head coaches hasn’t increased the way it should, relative to the revenues generated by the sport. That has led to suspicion that a wink-nod agreement exists among most teams regarding coaching pay.
If that’s what’s going on, it’s collusion. But it’s likely something for which no coach would sacrifice his career in exchange for a lawsuit.
That’s what would happen to any coach who decides to blaze a trail when it comes to claims of collusion or race discrimination or age discrimination. They’ll end up shunned, and they’ll trade the balance of their NFL careers for several years of litigation.