Harbaugh's Contract Extended

[coordinator0]

I think I have a problem. When I saw this the first thing that I thought of was oh boy, another season of terrible coordinating/coaching from the guys John picked for his staff. 

[Xmad]

Ehhh....John Harbaugh's a good coach who just needs some better coordinators. Can't really argue with his results.

[coordinator0]

You can argue with his results from the past four years.

I don't dislike Harbaugh in a vacuum. But his staff hires have been awful outside of Pagano and Kubiak... and both were only around for one year. Given that John has no input on offense or defense his coordinators for each side of the ball have to be on the money. And they aren't. Nor will the most likely be given his history. Just guys he's worked with before who currently aren't employed as coordinators in the NFL because they suck at it. 

[wackywabbit]

Harbs is a great coach who will be here for a long time. I think this is just Steve Bisciotti's way of shutting down that Harbaugh could be on the hot seat noise.

[drd23]

35 minutes ago, wackywabbit said:

I think this is just Steve Bisciotti's way of shutting down that Harbaugh could be on the hot seat noise.

This is my reading of it too.

Harbs is undeniably one of the better coaches in the league, but I do think that c0's criticisms (recent poor record, notorious for hiring his friends as coordinators instead of looking for the best possible coaching prospect) are valid.

[wackywabbit]

2 hours ago, drd23 said:

This is my reading of it too.

Harbs is undeniably one of the better coaches in the league, but I do think that c0's criticisms (recent poor record, notorious for hiring his friends as coordinators instead of looking for the best possible coaching prospect) are valid.

I don't disagree with that either. His selection/loyalty to some of his coaches has definitely been his weakness.

But the way the team consistently plays hard, even when they were shredded by injuries, I credit in part to what Harbs brings. There is rarely an embarrassing effort from the team. And the body of work is still overwhelmingly good.

I don't see the extension as good or bad news, as I had no doubt about Harbs future there. It's just clarifying to the "hot seat" take people.

[RavensfanRD]

Like I've always said, I have a love/hate relationship with John Harbaugh. I just wish this extension happened last year so we could have gotten a real offensive coordinator. I refuse to believe that Fraudy Mornhinweg was our best option. I have ZERO faith in him helping this offense be great.

[coordinator0]

8 hours ago, RavensfanRD said:

Like I've always said, I have a love/hate relationship with John Harbaugh. I just wish this extension happened last year so we could have gotten a real offensive coordinator. I refuse to believe that Fraudy Mornhinweg was our best option. I have ZERO faith in him helping this offense be great.

Well to be fair the team has had years to get a real defensive coordinator instead of Pees and that hasn't happened either.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, coordinator0 said:

Well to be fair the team has had years to get a real defensive coordinator instead of Pees and that hasn't happened either.

I'm relatively sure, from everything I've read over the years, John has a significant say in those coaching personnel decisions. He had it with Cam Cameron, he had it with Pagano, with Kubiak, with Caldwell, Trestman, and now Morningweg and Pees.

There are really no more excuses left for Harbaugh's poor track record of coaching hires/promotions. They speak for themselves, and they're not good. Overall we just haven't been a good team in any facet since 2013. Since 2008 we have a .590 win % (t-6th) but since 2013 it's .485 (16th). We've drafted poorly, we've had injuries, we've had bad coordinators/coaching, and it's lead to a very substandard product being on the field for us.

The thing about being a fan of a team where your coach has no input on the defensive, offensive, or ST's game plans is that it's really hard for us to measure his quantitative effect on the team and it's success. It's easy to do that for Ozzie Newsome, our coordinators, our players, etc., but for Harbaugh, I don't really know where his true value lies.

Anyways, I'm on the fence about his extension. I wanted this year to be a "prove it" year for him considering how much the team has tumbled lately, but it looks like they're giving Harbaugh a pass on previous years and chalking it up to injuries and other "bad beraks". Let's hope this year the defense lives up to the hype and carries us to 8 wins.

[coordinator0]

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Harbaugh has had years to get someone actually competent at coaching defense in this era. He has not done so, and seems to have doubled-down on Dean a couple of times. So expecting him to hire a competent offensive coordinator even with multiple years left on his contract is a big reach. I'd also like to point out going after Kubiak wasn't even his idea. It was Dennison's... as the Ravens were going after him as their offensive coordinator. 

So the moral of the story here is Harbaugh = bad coordinators (sans Rosburg, although special teams is a different thing entirely). That's probably not going to change. More years for Harbaugh? More years of bad coordinating. 

[RavensfanRD]

2 hours ago, coordinator0 said:

Well to be fair the team has had years to get a real defensive coordinator instead of Pees and that hasn't happened either.

Don't remind me. Ugh, it makes my blood boil badly.

[berlin calling]

i'm torn. i believe Harbs is a players coach and the team never quits on him.

however, he is loyal to his coordinators to a stage where it is hurting himself. there is simply no reason to keep Dean Pees for years, feeding him with valuable draft assets with next to none results. even if personally i am a Ravens fan for strong defense, smash mouth football, you need to keep your team balanced. def coordinators on other teams have done much better with much less.

if this season is not Pees make or break i dunno what to make of Harbaugh

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

All of this Dean Pees talk has me imagining how good our defense could be if we still had Chuck Pagano or Rex Ryan

[RavensfanRD]

7 minutes ago, Darth Pees said:

All of this Dean Pees talk has me imagining how good our defense could be if we still had Chuck Pagano or Rex Ryan

I wonder what Mr. Organized Chaos is doing these days?

[SalvadorsDeli]

2 hours ago, RavensfanRD said:

I wonder what Mr. Organized Chaos is doing these days?

Rex's defensive schemes got solved some time ago and he never adjusted, and he knows it. Hence why he's given up on coaching and just taking the broadcast gravy train. 

Pagano's defenses have been so consistently trash with Indy that I'm not really all that sure he wasn't just benefiting from a flukish one year bounce with us stemming from an easy schedule, stacked defensive lineup, and just being marginally better than Mattison, which isn't that hard to do.

Not to say I like Pees at all, I just think we don't need to fetishize guys who haven't done squat in a solid half decade+. 

Not in tune with who the 'next big things' are in defensive coaching circles but I hope if Pees does fail again this year and finally gets the boot,  we're looking for that young up and comer with new ideas to replace him rather than going for Pagano if/when he gets fired by Indy this year.