Can Jim Harbaugh Truly Pull The Chargers Out Of Eternal Mediocrity?
Everyone loves hearing about the underdog stories and the under the radar steps it takes to win. Yet sometimes, teams love to make a splash. The Los Angeles Chargers have been stuck in football purgatory for longer than they’d like to remember. A franchise bound by the shackles of change, the team has been straddling the line between Super Bowl contender and bottom feeder since the organization’s move from San Diego to LA.
Since then, the team had been vying for a glimmer of hope. Failure after another, it felt even when the stars were aligning in the preseason, there would be a cosmic crash in December and January. A curse, hex, whatever you want to call it, Los Angeles needed help. What better man than the head coach teams had been trying to court for years but ended up unsuccessful. What better coach than the one that has never had a losing season in the NFL? What better leader than the one that led the Michigan Wolverines to their first national championship since 1997?
In all facets of the phrase, Jim Harbaugh seems like the man for the Chargers. But those words have been uttered before. When Brandon Staley was hired, when Justin Herbert was drafted, when the Chargers spent their 21st overall pick in 2023 on Quentin Johnston, it all seemed to come together. Yet, it never did.
Harbaugh could be the team’s savior or yet another false promise, we don’t know. But if there’s one story his resume says, the Chargers couldn’t have been any more right in their hiring. Harbaugh is football personified. From his loud and proud football lineage to his simple “who’s got it better than us?” rally cry, there’s simply not much more you could ask from a football coach.
It’s easy to see why every team with a vacancy in their head coaching office at least mentioned him in meetings. Harbaugh’s knack for creating winning football teams out of seemingly thin air is unmatched. When he took over a moribund 1-11 Stanford team in 2007, he transformed it into a New Year’s Eve bowl game winning, 12-1 team in a mere two years. When that performance alone sent him to the NFL ranks as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2011, he immediately turned a franchise with had sunk itself into affliction by not having a .500 record since 2002 with Jeff Garcia under center into a NFC powerhouse, making the Super Bowl in 2012 and the NFC Championship Game a total of three times in four years.
It seemed like there wasn’t much more that Harbaugh could do except keep progressing his resume. Harbaugh’s talents weren’t yet done when he left San Francisco in order to coach his alma mater in Michigan. Nearly every year he led the Wolverines, they were a NCAA blue blood, posting an 89-25 record.
“Jim Harbaugh is football personified, and I can think of no one better to lead the Chargers forward,” owner Dean Spanos said in a statement. “The son of a coach, brother of a coach and father of a coach who himself was coached by names like Schembechler and Ditka, for the past two decades Jim has led hundreds of men to success everywhere he’s been — as their coach. And today, Jim Harbaugh returns to the Chargers, this time as our coach. Who has it better than us?”
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Harbaugh played for the Chargers in 1999 and 2000, when they were still in San Diego. If there was anything to prove that time might be a flat circle, Harbaugh’s return to the royal navy and the yellow might be a sign. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the Chargers need Harbaugh’s help.
Urgently.
Los Angeles has had only signs of serious regression from the playoff contenders they were just years ago. A solid roster construction paired with what felt like coaching malfeasance led to a string of embarassing losses throughout the 2023 season, including an ignominious 63-21 loss to a sans head coach Las Vegas Raiders team, the worst in team history. The game led to the immediate firing of head coach Brandon Staley, which in turn opened up the floodgates for Jim Harbaugh to be swayed towards Los Angeles.
By hiring Harbaugh, Los Angles has shown a deep investment in a “win now” philosophy. The team isn’t interested in rebuilding or a brand new set of shiny players. Instead, it’s clear that Spanos needs this team to win or risk actually cleaning house.
Despite the blockbuster hiring, Harbaugh isn’t spotless as a head coach. He’s spent over half of the 2023 regular season suspended for NCAA infractions including those that involve alleged sign stealing and recruiting violations. While the NFL is a completely separate ball game, could it be the case that Harbaugh might be trying to run away from what is becoming an overly competitive field?
To that, we’d say no. Harbaugh is coming off one of the best seasons in Michigan history. One that ended in a national championship which was one handedly over a offensive juggernaut in Washington. The Wolverines won the Rose Bowl and Harbaugh served his time for his supposed “crimes”. Harbaugh isn’t running away from anything, instead heading back to the NFL was always the plan. Jim Harbaugh had been included in clandestine NFL coaching conversations since early last year. The issue?
Harbaugh felt he had unfinished business at Michigan. Or at least that was the PR friendly version of saying he didn’t find a proper roster with a proper paycheck. Either/or at this point.
“My love for Michigan, playing there and coming back to coach there, leaves a lasting impact. I’ll always be a loyal Wolverine,” Harbaugh said in his statement. “I’m remarkably fortunate to have been afforded the privilege of coaching at places where life’s journey has created strong personal connections for me.
“From working as an assistant coach at Western Kentucky alongside my father, Jack, and time as an assistant with the Raiders, to being a head coach at USD, Stanford, the 49ers and Michigan — each of those opportunities carried significance, each felt personal. When I played for the Chargers, the Spanos family could not have been more gracious or more welcoming. Being back here feels like home, and it’s great to see that those things haven’t changed.”
“You don’t build a résumé like Jim’s by accident, and you don’t do it by yourself,” Chargers president John Spanos said in a statement. “You need a team. And nobody has built a team more successfully, and repeatedly, in recent history than Jim Harbaugh. His former players swear by him, and his opponents swear at him. Jim is one of one.”
Say what you want about the man. His experience speaks for itself. The cards are all ripe for what Jim Harbaugh consistently has done best. Revamp teams. Los Angeles has always been a preseason darling to go deep into the NFL postseason every year since Justin Herbert has taken the helm. Yet, somehow they’ve never managed to do enough. It’s gotten so bad, it’s evoked a new term: “chargering”.
As previous head coach Brandon Staley described it, “I would define that as choking a game away. Where you collapsed. You crumbled.” The team has had its fair share of self-inflicted challenges over its history, but the worst of it has seemed to rear its head in recent years.
“At the end of the day, we’ve had a history of things not falling our way,” tight end Antonio Gates said. “And in the sports world, you get a stigma and it’s up to you to overcome it at one point. It’s like a guy who misses free throws in the clutch all the time. Until you start making them, people are going to say that’s the guy that chokes.”
It’s safe to say the second Harbaugh enters the Chargers’ facility, that term will be long gone. Not just in a hopeful sense. Harbaugh has grown a knack for being a culture changer and a paradigm shifter.
“He was able to take players that others didn’t think were that good and turn them into a team that is greater than the sum of its parts,” FOX Sports college football analyst RJ Young said of Harbaugh in his podcast, “The Number One College Football Show.” “He changed the culture at Michigan. It could not have been a better way to end his time there.”
Harbaugh will now take that same philosophy to a reeling NFL team. Just like he did with the 49ers and just like he did at Stanford. This isn’t Harbaugh’s first rodeo nor will it be the last. Los Angeles has surrounded him with the proper tools he’ll need to truly create something special. The Chargers organization has finally came out and made the massive introspective steps it takes to be successful in the league.
Too long have teams been focused on the end result not caring about how they get there. The system is one of Harbaugh’s most important selling points when it comes to being a head coach. The coach locks in more on what a team does in preparation and behind the scenes. That’s why Michigan wasn’t an overnight success and why it took so long for Harbaugh to make the jump back to the NFL.
Don’t be surprised if Harbaugh under his own power decides to gut a good amount of the team. A rebuild wasn’t in the blueprint that Chargers had drawn out, but with the team in cap space hell– at least $27 million in the hole, it’d be impossible not to carve out key members of the team.
The final question remaining is can Harbaugh build a good enough coaching staff. The team is all but certain he’ll try and assemble an all-star ensemble fitted to exactly what he’d need. He’s done it before in San Francisco with Vic Fangio as the defensive coordinator and Greg Roman heading the offense. Names like Ejiro Evero and Jim Tomsula even scattered the coaching roster. At Michigan he’s worked with Mike Macdonald, current defensive coordinator for the No. 1 seed Baltimore Ravens and left the Wolverines confident in Sherrone Moore, who might take Harbaugh’s slot in Ann Arbor.
Predicting whether or not Harbaugh truly is the man in Los Angeles is nearly impossible. But, history can tell you a lot about a situation, especially football. Harbaugh personifies football like Spanos said, but also embodies the Chargers’ organization. If this marriage works out, Harbaugh’s return to the NFL will be a thorn in the AFC West’s side for years to come.
