Every NFL offseason, teams around the league fire head coaches and hire new ones. In the 2024 offseason, eight teams hired new leaders and the Los Angeles Chargers may have got the best one in Jim Harbaugh, who has his team currently in the playoff picture at 7-3 and playing the best football of the Justin Herbert Era. At least one NFL general manager believes that several of the teams that didn’t hire Harbaugh are kicking themselves right now.
“Text from an NFC GM,” Bleacher Report NFL insider Jordan Schultz shared on Monday after the Chargers win over the Cincinnati Bengals. “The amount of regret some teams have for not hiring Jim Harbaugh when they had the chance… It’s very real.”
So, which teams could this GM be talking about?
The seven other NFL head coaches hired in this latest cycle are Antonio Pierce (Las Vegas Raiders), Dave Canales (Carolina Panthers), Mike Macdonald (Seattle Seahawks), Brian Callahan (Tennessee Titans), Raheem Morris (Atlanta Falcons), Jared Mayo (New England Patriots), and Dan Quinn (Washington Commanders).
Of those teams, the Commanders and maybe the Seahawks are the two franchises that could be fully happy with their hire and likely aren’t looking at Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers with jealousy. Outside of that, the Falcons are underachieving as always and Panthers, Titans, and Patriots are just bad to varying degrees.
While Harbaugh certainly wouldn’t have even entertained several of these jobs, places like the Falcons with a lot of pieces in place or the Raiders — who he reportedly talked to — surely had a shot and would likely be in a much better spot with the former Michigan man in the head job.
Who is the 2025 Jim Harbaugh?
As usual, there will be several new NFL head coaches in 2025. We know the New Orleans Saints and New York Jets will for sure. There is also a decent chance that the Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, and maybe even the Raiders again will as well.
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So, who will be the coach that goes to one team and has the rest kicking themselves?
Names like Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, Joe Brady, and Kliff Kingsbury will come up in the 2025 coaching carousel, and several will likely get jobs. However, the coach who could turn a team around quickly and will make other franchises upset that they didn’t take a chance on him is none other than Bill Belichick.
Most organizations don’t want to fully hand the reins to a then-73-year-old, but if any coach gets a team turned around in his first season, it’s the GOAT.