John Harbaugh is no longer the Ravens’ head coach after 18 seasons, a Super Bowl win, and 12 playoff berths.
The Baltimore Ravens have ended John Harbaugh’s 18-year spell as head coach after the team failed to reach the NFL playoffs. The 63-year-old was the second-longest serving head coach in the NFL, and he led the team to playoff wins in each of his first five seasons before going all the way in 2013, when the Ravens won the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers.
“Well, I was hoping for a different kind of message on my last day here, someday, but that day has come today,” John Harbaugh said in a statement.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision, given the tremendous 18 years we have spent together and the profound respect I have for John as a coach and, most importantly, as a great man of integrity,” Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said in a statement. It’s impossible to know for sure whether the timing is right or if you’ll be better off in the future, but that’s apparently a risk Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti is willing to take.
Despite a down year, Harbaugh’s still well respected across the league and is already garnering serious interest from other NFL teams. Adam Schefter, an ESPN reporter, detailed in a report that in the first 45 minutes after Harbaugh was fired, his agent Bryan Harlan, received calls from seven NFL teams expressing interest in Harbaugh. Schefter also said that at least one NFL team that currently has a head coach reached out to John Harbaugh’s agent. Schefter also went on to say on the X platform that Harbaugh is “expected to emerge as a favorite for the head coaching job of the New York Giants” and that “Harbaugh will be in demand for many teams, not just the Giants.”
