Today, the Ravens hired Eagles secondary coach John Harbaughas their new head coach, signing him to a four-year contract. Harbaugh is seen as the Ravens second choice, as they reportedly offered the job to Dallas offensive coordinator Jason Garrett before Garrett decided to stay in Dallas.
I’m happy for Harbaugh. This was his first year as the secondary coach after spending seven seasons as the Eagles special-teams coach. The Eagles were horrible on special teams when he got the job, and he really turned it around and made it a strength for the team.
I have mixed feelings about this hire though, for a couple of reasons. One, as an Eagles fan, I feel like we shouldn’t be having our assistant coaches raided right now. We’re 24-24 over the last three seasons, and someone just hired our special teams/secondary coach to be their head coach. That doesn’t seem right, does it? Don’t the Patriots have a guy pushing a mop somewhere that might be a better fit?
Also, on a less selfish/more serious note, does John Harbaugh reallydeserve a head coaching job? Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know how a lot of coaches become “hot” candidates. At this time last year, Jason Garrett was just some career third-string quarterback getting a shot in coaching, and now, apparently, he’s the next Vince Lombardi. I’m not saying he won’t be a really good head coach, I’m just saying I don’t understand the process through which so many teams became convinced that he was the next great one. But at least Garrett was offensive coordinator for the best offense in the NFC this year (and played in the league, unlike Harbaugh). Did Sean Considine do something in the Eagles secondary this year that made the Ravens say, “Wow, who’s coaching thatguy, we need him running the whole show down here!”? Or were they just so impressed with the way the Eagles set their wedge on kick returns under Harbaugh that they saw a future head coach? It all just doesn’t really add up to me.
So, my real problem with this hiring is that there’s tons of way more qualified candidates out there than John Harbaugh. Unfortunately for them, their father wasn’t a college head coach and their brother wasn’t an NFL quarterback and current head coach at Stanford. I’ll stop with the implications and just say it: this hiring stinks of nepotism. You can look around the league and find a lot of coaches that have been successful offensive/defensive coordinators or assistant head coaches that have never been given a shot as a head coach.
To make matters worse, there’s the still all-too-obvious lack of black head coaches. It’s been much publicized, but in a league with roughly 70% black players, less than 20% of the head coaches (6 out of 32) were black this season. A year 
after the first two black head coaches reached the Super Bowl, there still seems to be little progress. It’s not as if there aren’t qualified candidates. There are a bunch of black coaches that are more qualified than Harbaugh, including 49ers assistant head coach Mike Singletary, Colts defensive coordinator Ron Meeks, and Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier. Another well qualified black candidate, Colts assistant head coach Jim Caldwell, withdrew his name from consideration for the Ravens and Falcons openings, with many people speculating he did so because he is next in line for the Colts head coaching position when Tony Dungy retires. However, there has been speculation that Caldwell withdrew because he didn’t think he was seen as a legitimate candidate and was “tired of being the ‘token’ African-American interviewed for head coaching jobs around the league”, as Mike Preston wrote for the Baltimore Sun.
Harbaugh may end up being very successful with the Ravens and I’m disappointed that the Eagles lost a solid assistant coach, but if I were running the Ravens, he’s not the man I would’ve hired.
