Report: Michigan sources think Jim Harbaugh would take the Raiders job

Posted by Mike Florio on January 19, 2022, 8:02 PM EST
2021 Big Ten Championship - Iowa v Michigan
Getty Images

The Raiders are looking for a new head coach. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is looking for a path back to the NFL. Is it a match made in football heaven?

Dueling reports from TheAthletic.com paint a dramatically different picture regarding the possibility of Harbaugh returning to the franchise with which he began his coaching career, 20 years ago.

Bruce Feldman of TheAthletic.com reports that “multiple sources inside Michigan football” believe that, if Harbaugh is offered the Raiders job, he’d take it. In contrast, Vic Tafur of TheAthletic.com suggests that the Raiders aren’t as interested in Harbaugh as perhaps Harbaugh wants the Raiders to be.

The reality, as we understand it, is that Harbaugh generally has interest in an NFL return, to the right situation. He’s 58, and he wants to win a Super Bowl. With 25 percent of the league (and perhaps more) looking for a new coach, Harbaugh isn’t restricted to the Raiders. Any of the teams looking for a coach could do a lot worse than a guy who immediately turned a 6-10 49ers team into a contender, and who went 44-19-1 in four seasons in San Francisco.

Could it be the Raiders? Sure. Could it be another team with a vacancy? Why not. Could it ultimately be, say, the Cardinals and a return to the NFC West, if they move on from Kliff Kingsbury? Two games per year against the 49ers, Seahawks, and Rams would be compelling, to say the least.

Permalink 41 Comments Feed for comments Back to top

41 responses to “Report: Michigan sources think Jim Harbaugh would take the Raiders job”

  3. Question: Asking because I don’t know. Are head coaches a part of the salary cap or not? It seems if they are how could the Raiders afford Harbaugh when possibly still owing Gruden.

  4. Best thing Kingsbury has going for him is his hair and his living room
    From the 2020 draft.

  6. Ross, you don’t have a HC you can safely pursue JH. If he wants out of UM bring him to Miami. Don’t flub it up!

  10. Harbaugh wants more money from UM. He’s making less than the coach at Michigan State an doesn’t like it.

  11. Kingsbury isn’t going anywhere- for now. Owners are generally reluctant to dismiss coaches for a playoff loss if the team is moving forward – positive outcomes overall. No one is perfect. On the other hand admitting you made a bad hire to begin with is usually not in the repertoire of owners. Before they dismiss they typically will say they have afforded all opportunities and resources for improvement. Kiem (GM) and Bidwell have said nothing. It’s easy for a fan to say fire the coach. It’s another thing when you have worked with a person daily over a couple of years then boot them without sufficient warning.

  13. Take out that first season of 6-10, and he’s 38-9. That’s insane. He should be your first call whether he’s a JO or not.

  14. A Bills win over Kansas City and it is a done deal. Harbaugh would coach the best QB he’s ever worked with, a team that showed character winning 10 games with an interim coach. Who’s going to be the personnel man?

  20. Michigan seems to be yawning that their coach might be leaving – kind of like the parent who helps their kid pack when they start talking about running away from home.

  24. Personally I believe Harbaugh is just using the Wolverines recent success beating Ohio State and getting into the college playoffs and NFL Rumours to get a pay raise and more job security. I could be wrong and he could go to the NFL but I don’t think so. I don’t think NFL teams are really interested in him. I also feel his offensive philosophy is not in step with the current trends in the NFL.

  25. Having been absolutely pasted by non-NFL Ohio State coaches for years on end until his lucky break this year, Harbaugh hopes to find some escape from the purgatory of crappy coaching that he consigned himself to.

  26. the raiders arent in as good a position as some think. they got to decide on derek carr who is a great guy, well loved, says all the right things but chokes on the field. if they extend his contract there goes 4-5 more yrs of groundhog day. there’s no QBS in the draft
    worth mentioning. they don’t seem to even want to see what they got in mattiotti. harbaugh was a QB. you cant B.S him with stats.

  28. I live in Ann Arbor…

    until there is solid reporting that he has actually interviewed with an NFL team, the opinion around here is he’s going nowhere.

    why would he leave UM? he basically has no accountability there , especially after this last year.

  30. I think it will be a few more years before he jumps back into the NFL. If I was an owner looking for bright young coach. I would interview the young man that Harbaugh’s brother sent him for the defensive coordinator. This is the first year he was able to beat Ohio State.

  31. Can the Raiders afford another high end coach at the moment? They presumably had/have to pay Gruden SOMETHING and historically they’re pretty cash strapped. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hire a David Culley for a year or two to get the Gruden payout off the books before hiring a true NFL coach again.

  32. Remember the old days, when absolutely no coach wanted anything to do with the Raiders? New owner, new city, new stadium, and suddenly the Raiders are a top destination! Bring in Harbaugh, please!

  33. Report: Michigan sources “hoping” Jim Harbaugh would take the Raiders job

  34. Bruce Feldman of TheAthletic.com reports that “multiple sources inside Michigan football” believe that, if Harbaugh is offered the Raiders job, he’d take it. In contrast, Vic Tafur of TheAthletic.com suggests that the Raiders aren’t as interested in Harbaugh as perhaps Harbaugh wants the Raiders to be
    ————
    Those are NOT contrasting views. Scenario A their saying if offered Harbaugh would take the job, scenario B their saying if offered Harbaugh would take the job but their not as interested as he wants. Those 2 statements dont even come close to contradicting each other.

  35. Lets see. All your top players either left or declared for the draft. Your defensive coach is gone and you had a so so recruiting class to replace these people and not a lot of portal transfers. Thus your probably looking at your run to the top as final and your getting your buttsky kicked next year.
    I would think a good janitorial job somewhere may be appealing.
    Wow this news is obviously a desperate attempt via his agent to tell Davis CALL ME, SOON.

  36. why would he leave UM?
    ———

    Where to begin? If you live in Ann Arbor you know all about how the old money there hates how MI is best known for football and not academics. For those same reasons, MI will never be able to compete w the Bama’s and Georgia’s of CFB in recruiting. He’s taken MI to its heights. Nowhere to go but down. The university also slashed his salary last year. Recruiting is a bear. In the pros his job is a lot easier. He can focus strictly on football and not have to worry about the 365 recruiting trail, There are more reasons but those are the big ones.

  37. Harbaugh’s a good coach, but remember he got a break by canceling their (home) game vs tOSU in 2020 “due to Covid lol”, then got rewarded by not losing that home game this season. It was all a communist plot by him to screw tOSU and he executed the plan (for once).

    He’s simply a better fit for the NFL game. He survived Ditka while a starting QB, that enough is honorable.

  38. Stranger things have happened. They got over the hump against Ohio State finally so you’d think he’d be interested in building on that but if he thinks that was the pinnacle he might want to leave on a high note. And worth noting “sources within Michigan” might be secretly hoping he does move on. For as much as he wins no place he has left has ever really seemed devastated by his departure.

  39. The Raiders should be all over Harbaugh. To promote their interim head coach based on what he did this season is crazy. Its easy to take over a plane mid flight, but not as easy to prepare the flight plan. Set the coordinates, and control the plane during take off and final approach. Coaching a team mid season is a completely different skill set than building the team, coaching staff, setting the culture, establishing the team identity, and preparing it for the season. But hey, they’re the Raiders.

    I think Chicago is an ideal spot for Harbaugh personnel wise. Its built for his DC “Lord Fangio” and the QB is built for his OC “G Ro” and he’s in the NFC and out of his brother’s way – which apparently means a lot to him.

    As far as Michigan, the NFL is a level playing field. As long as you have significant control over personnel and great talent evaluators the NFL is better than college. Now if you’re not that good of a coach and you need to build an absolute powerhouse to win consistently then a big college in a recruiting hot bed is where you need to be.

  40. Are the Raiders a particularly attractive job? I don’t think so, above avg QB, poor Oline, weak WR corp. Strong D line and some nice pieces in the secondary but this isn’t close to the talent level on the 49ers when he joined.

    Cards I could see but it doesn’t seem like they’ll make the move yet. Time just doesn’t seem right.

  41. Harbaugh didn’t go 6-10 in his first NFL season as a poster suggested. He went 13-3 in his first year.

    The only thing that makes me skeptical about Harbaugh is that 49er team he took over was stacked with early first round picks. Alex Smith, Vernon Davis, Patrick Willis, Joe Staley, Michael Crabtree, Mike Iupati, Aldon Smith.

    It was falling apart by year four when he went 8-8.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Not a member? Register now!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.