If things go according to plan, the New York Giants will be introducing John Harbaugh as their newest head coach by the end of next week. That is the belief of one prominent New York sports columnist.
“I think both parties really want each other, and I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work out,” Ian O’Connor, columnist for The Athletic, said on the ‘Valentine’s Views’ podcast. “If you said I have to put down 20 bucks on a candidate today, absolutely, John Harbaugh will be the head coach of the Giants by the end of next week. That’s what I believe.“
Nothing, of course, is guaranteed. Every team with an opening for a head coach would like to talk to Harbaugh. A couple of teams ousted this weekend in the Wild-Card round of the playoffs could also enter the mix.
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things happen,” O’Connor said. “It’s certainly possible that it will go sideways at some point. But I believe today that John Harbaugh is the best candidate for the job and the most likely candidate to get hired.”
‘Very interested’
Harbaugh is expected to begin taking interviews next week. There are other suitors, such as the Miami Dolphins, and more could emerge after Wild-Card weekend. O’Connor believes, though, that Harbaugh is “very interested in the Giants’ job.”
When Harbaugh does come to East Rutherford, N.J., will he actually be interviewing the Giants?
“I think there’s a little bit of that dynamic that will likely be in play during that meeting,” O’Connor said. “But John is more or less a collaborative guy. I think he’s just not the kind of guy who’s going to go in there and demand that Joe Schoen be fired. I think he is going to want personnel say to some degree.”
The Giants have always been GM-driven in terms of their decision-making structure, with the general manager having personnel authority rather than the coach. To land Harbaugh, the Giants might need to be willing to bend that structure somewhat.
“You hire John Harbaugh for a reason, and that is to bring his winning expertise to your organization. You don’t limit him to just coaching. I think Joe Schoen knows that,” O’Connor said. “For one, Joe realizes he’s probably lucky he’s still employed, and there are a lot of franchises around the NFL where he wouldn’t be anymore after his record of 13 and 38 the last three years. So, there’s that. Also, he knows that his bosses want to hire John Harbaugh. It’s very likely they want to do that. So, I think they’ll work it out where Harbaugh will have a good amount of say in personnel, but so will Joe.”
John Mara’s health as a factor
Mara, of course, is battling cancer. Does his health impact how candidates for the coaching job might feel about the Giants’ job?
“I think you’d have to ask each individual candidate because I think that’s not a group answer. Everybody’s going to have a different take on that,” O’Connor said. “I think everybody would agree we all want John Mara to live another 30 years, right? And to be running the Giants as long as he wants to run the Giants.”
O’Connor did say he knows Harbaugh has “tremendous respect” for Mara, and that the co-owner is a “big positive” in the search for a coach.
“John’s reputation around the league is rock solid. In my 40 years of covering sports in New York, I would say he’s as honorable a man as any owner I’ve covered,” O’Connor said. “And so I think John Mara at the end of the day is a positive in this search. A big positive.”
Kevin Stefanski as Plan B
If Harbaugh and the Giants end up deciding that they are not a match, the obvious Plan B is Kevin Stefanski, a two-time coach of the year in six seasons with the Cleveland Browns.
In talking to O’Connor, I used the analogy that Harbaugh might be a grand slam home run hire, while Stefanski could be a three-run home run. He put his own twist on it.
“I think it’s a good consolation prize,” O’Connor said. “If John’s a grand slam, a walk-off in the ninth, it’s [hiring Stefanski] a three-run homer in the eighth.”
O’Connor pointed out that while Stefanski has never worked in the Northeast, he knows the market. He is a Philadelphia native, and his father, Ed Stefanski, served as general manager of both the New Jersey Nets and Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA.
“I think Kevin grew up in a home where he understood the pressures of Northeast marketplaces,” O’Connor said. “I think Stefanski getting a quarterback he can really work with in Jaxson Dart, and some playmakers and some talent on this roster, and I think he’d feel at home in the Northeast. So, I think that could be a pretty good marriage as well.”
Former Giants quarterback Phil Simms would also be a fan of bringing Stefanski to the Giants:
The disaster scenario
That, of course, would be if both Harbaugh and Stefanski decide to go elsewhere, and Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers never becomes an option.
O’Connor knows “the fan base would erupt,” but said the Giants “have options” in that case.
One of those might be former Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy. McCarthy does not generate the buzz of Harbaugh, Stefanski, or Tomlin, and O’Connor knows fans are “50-50” on hiring him. McCarthy, though, has a Super Bowl title, 12 playoff appearances in 18 seasons, and a reputation for working with some of the game’s premier quarterbacks.
“If your biggest problem with him right now, looking at the way the last 14 years have gone, is that he struggles winning in the playoffs after winning 12 games in the regular season, that’s a pretty good problem to have the way things have looked in East Rutherford in recent years,” O’Connor said.
[NOTE: Click the player at the top of the post to listen to the full interview.]
- Mike Kafka (Completed)
- Kevin Stefanski (Completed)
- Raheem Morris (Completed)
- Antonio Pierce (Completed)
- Vance Joseph (Completed)
- Darren Rizzi (Saturday — Russini)
- Lou Anarumo (Pending)
- Klint Kubiak (Pending)
- Mike McCarthy (Monday night and Tuesday | Stapleton)
- John Harbaugh (Pending)
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