Where Jim Harbaugh could land
— -- The NFL coaches, executives and agents I spoke with Sunday listed teams they thought Jim Harbaugh might wind up coaching in 2015. None mentioned Harbaugh's current team, the San Francisco 49ers, even though Harbaugh is under contract to them for another season. How telling is that?
Only New England owns a higher winning percentage than the 49ers since Harbaugh became San Francisco's coach before the 2011 season, but all the signs point to a breakup.
"The noise coming out of there tells me it is over," a veteran agent said.
That noise has become cacophonous. Earlier reports of friction with the front office, a contract stalemate and a possible trade sending Harbaugh to Cleveland have given way to more tangible signs after a 19-3 home loss to Seattle in Week 13 that dropped the Niners to 7-5 and the outside looking in at the playoff picture. CEO Jed York apologized to fans for that performance. General manager Trent Baalke later apologized for the tweet his daughter fired off ripping Harbaugh's offensive coordinator. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Sunday that a trade of Harbaugh to another team is a possibility.
"There is something wrong there," a longtime NFL executive said. "Something needs to change."
Where might Harbaugh wind up? My list of Week 13 takeaways begins there and ends after covering Johnny Manziel, Jay Gruden, Colin Kaepernick, Alex Smith, Bill Belichick, Lovie Smith, Drew Stanton, Pete Carroll and more.
1. No one expects Harbaugh to be back with the 49ers in 2015. So where will he land?
Here's an initial short list of potential suitors, with insights on some of the pluses and minuses. The insiders stressed that there will typically be at least one surprise opening for a head coach. At least one of the jobs listed below might not open at all.
Oakland Raiders: John Facenda could have been describing Harbaugh instead of the Raiders when the NFL Films legend famously called the autumn wind a pirate "blustering in from sea, with a rollicking song he sweeps along, swaggering boisterously." Harbaugh embraces the mystique of the game at every turn. He has long been associated with it, from Bo Schembechler and Michigan to the Chicago Bears and on to the 49ers. The Raiders need someone to revive their mystique.
Harbaugh could take this job without leaving the Bay Area. He has worked for the Raiders previously. He's won with different quarterbacks. The Raiders do have a rookie QB with promise in Derek Carr, and they could very well end up with the No. 1 overall pick.
"Oakland makes a ton of sense," an agent said, "but I wonder whether the 49ers would demand compensation."
Harbaugh remains under contract through 2015. That makes him a 49ers asset even if he is not coaching for them. While Oakland is the first team that came to mind for insiders, I found no single compelling reason to think it would happen. The Raiders have not been known for paying assistant coaches generously; Harbaugh has put together a high-priced staff in San Francisco, and he would presumably want one elsewhere. It's unclear how many of his current 49ers assistants could follow him to his next stop. Insiders thought there was little doubt offensive coordinator Greg Roman would be out.
One veteran coach I spoke with also questioned how much of a factor staying in the Bay Area would really be for Harbaugh and his family. When you're making $5 million a year, he said, it makes it easier for your family to like wherever you're living.
New York Jets: Insiders see the Jets as far more likely than the Giants to welcome Harbaugh and the potential front-office friction that comes along with his hard-charging style.
"Harbaugh brings credibility and the Jets need that," an executive said.
One agent ruled out the Jets because he thought Harbaugh would never go to a team with a difficult quarterback situation. However, an executive strongly disagreed, noting that Harbaugh took the San Francisco job without knowing whether Alex Smith would return or right his career.
"I am not disrespecting [Alex] Smith or Kaepernick, but those guys are not elite quarterbacks at all," the executive said. "He just plugs them in and wins games with both of them. I think he thinks he can do that, whether it is Derek Carr or pick a guy."
An assistant coach considered the Jets viable and noted that Harbaugh's antics would be tame by Big Apple standards. Does it get any wackier than the time Rex Ryan declined comment after videos with titles such as "Hot Mature Sexy Feet" surfaced? Harbaugh wears cleats with his khakis on game day. He's all about football.
"He will be a power coach with the upper hand in personnel and viewed as a clear upgrade," the assistant coach said. "Right now, he does not have the upper hand in personnel."
Miami Dolphins: Joe Philbin has the Dolphins in position for a playoff berth and possibly even an AFC East title, but as one of the insiders put it, nothing stops an owner from simply seeking an upgrade. The Seahawks took that route when Pete Carroll became available to them after only one season with Jim Mora Jr. as head coach. The timing was not ideal. The move was not fair to Mora. But when Seahawks owner Paul Allen thought he had a chance to upgrade in a big way, he wasted little time in doing so.
The Dolphins are intriguing because they have good talent on defense, just as the 49ers did when Harbaugh took over for Mike Singletary. That San Francisco defense helped the 49ers win games even when their quarterbacks were not producing at a high level.
"I think Miami makes the playoffs, but if they miss the playoffs at 8-8, the Dolphins are my pick," an executive said. "The owner [Stephen Ross] wanted to hire the guy before. I think that owner wants to make a statement."
Atlanta Falcons: Owner Arthur Blank made it clear earlier in the season that he felt there was a big gap between the Falcons' talent and their poor record. The coaches and evaluators I know disagree, but Blank's opinion is the only one that matters here. His team came close to the Super Bowl after the 2012 season, but Harbaugh and the 49ers made sure they did not advance.
"I would not doubt if you are talking about Arthur Blank trying to build a stadium, he goes for flash," one of the agents said.
An executive lumped Atlanta with Carolina as teams with motivated owners who have tasted postseason success without winning championships. He thought these owners would see Harbaugh as someone who could deliver them to the Super Bowl. Carolina has not been known for generosity toward assistant coaches, however, and none of the other insiders raised the Panthers as a likely suitor.
University of Michigan: One of the insiders listed Michigan atop his list. The other insiders saw this job as a fallback that would be there for Harbaugh down the line. They saw Harbaugh as motivated to win a Super Bowl before settling back into the college ranks for the type of job a coach can keep for the long haul.
"If he wants power and a lot of money and knows the landscape, he can go there and have everything he wants," one of the insiders said. "You would run into none of the problems a coach runs into in the NFL. He could have a job for life, basically."
There is no evidence Harbaugh has been pushing for greater personnel authority. Criticisms of him suggest his intensity is what can wear thin over time.
"I think he is much more of a football coach," an executive said. "At the end of the day, no matter who he is with, in four years it is going to blow up. If not, after five years there will be some issues. He is just an emotional guy."
2. Johnny Manziel is not the only one with lots to gain if the Cleveland Browns name him their starter for the final four games.
Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan would be a big winner as a head-coaching candidate if Manziel led the 7-5 Browns to the playoffs with an impressive debut over the final four regular-season games.
The Browns did not immediately declare Manziel to be their starter after benching Brian Hoyer with 12:01 remaining in their 26-10 loss at Buffalo. However, coach Mike Pettine made it clear the team was leaning in that direction. Games against Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Carolina (road) and Baltimore (road) await. Hoyer already has faced the Bengals and Ravens. He averaged 10.2 yards per pass attempt with a 110.4 passer rating and 86.8 QBR score against them. But with Hoyer struggling, Cleveland has lost to teams with Ryan Mallett and Kyle Orton at quarterback over the past three games.
The responses of two general managers I spoke with at the scouting combine in February summed up perfectly how quite a few people felt about Manziel at that time.
"He scares me," one of them said.
"He scares me more playing against him," said another.
The Browns' win probability stood at 2.7 percent when Manziel replaced Hoyer in Buffalo. The 80-yard touchdown drive Manziel led upped that percentage to 8.8. It wasn't quite garbage time, but it was close. If the Browns make the change to Manziel, it will be for reasons beyond his limited appearance Sunday. The team would have to feel as though Hoyer had plateaued and Manziel could surpass him quickly.
Switching to Manziel represents only a small gamble because Hoyer is not playing well enough to win consistently. But it's unrealistic to expect consistency from Manziel or any rookie QB without much experience in a pro-style offense. That is where Shanahan comes in. If he can unleash Manziel the way the Washington Redskins unleashed Robert Griffin III III as a rookie when Shanahan was their offensive coordinator, his résumé is going to become more appealing. The question is whether tailoring offenses for running quarterbacks stunts their development as pocket passers, hurting them in the long term.
3. Benching Robert Griffin III was about more than the QB position.
The Redskins did not necessarily have a viable alternative when they benched Griffin for Colt McCoy. McCoy has provided an upgrade in his two starts, but first-year coach Jay Gruden needed to make this change regardless. Benching Griffin allowed Gruden to counter perceptions that he was just another puppet working under owner Dan Snyder. Those perceptions were his reality until proved otherwise.
"Everyone thought there was a double standard with the quarterback," an offensive coach from another team said. "That is over. Jay ended that."
Coaches and personnel people I've spoken with have pointed to Snyder, Arthur Blank and Jerry Jones as well-meaning owners whose close relationships with players can undercut head coaches. Snyder seemed to have Griffin's back, but it's less relevant now that Gruden has sent Griffin to the sideline.
"I love the owner at the Falcons and I love Jerry Jones, but there is an ease there that hinders production and filters to the player," one coach said before the season. "There is an excuse, something there, a soft pillow for you. ... You can change all the head coaches you want, but until that attitude changes, you have got a problem. There has to be an urgency, a level of competition to bring out the best in a player. Then the head coach can stand up and give demands and try to bring out the best in you. If you've got a place to go like that [the owner], it doesn't work."
4. The 49ers would have been better off with Alex Smith instead of Colin Kaepernick -- at least against the Seahawks.
Kaepernick's youth and big-play ability played leading roles in the 2012 decision to go with Kaepernick over Smith as the starting quarterback. Kaepernick helped the 49ers get to the Super Bowl, but his big-play mentality has sometimes backfired in big games -- especially against Seattle.
"If you polled people in the 49ers' building, how many of them would say they would rather have Kaepernick over Alex Smith?" a veteran coach asked. "I don't see it."
Since 2011, when Harbaugh arrived in San Francisco, Smith has a 4-0 starting record against Seattle with just one turnover in those games. Kaepernick has a 1-4 mark against Seattle with 11 turnovers. Smith made three of those four starts at home, including one for Kansas City this season. He made two of them in 2011, when the Seahawks were a 7-9 team still finding its way. This is not a straight-across comparison, in other words. Smith was hardly dynamic while posting those four victories against Seattle. He threw just one touchdown pass in those games.
But that 10-turnover gap against Seattle is impossible to overlook, particularly given the stakes. Kaepernick has thrown nine of his 24 career interceptions against the Seahawks (37.5 percent). Some of those turnovers played leading roles in the losses San Francisco suffered in the NFC Championship Game last season and on Thanksgiving this year. If that first defeat wobbled the Harbaugh-era 49ers, the most recent one registered a knockdown.
5. The biggest game of the week -- Patriots at Packers -- isn't going to mean a whole lot. But it was interesting to see Tom Brady and Bill Belichick falter in a specific way.
This was a fun game to watch, but also one without earth-shattering implications. Both teams remain in command of their divisions. New England still holds a tiebreaker over Denver in the AFC as both compete for the No. 1 seed.
It was interesting from a coaching and quarterbacking standpoint to see the Patriots allow a touchdown late in the second quarter for the second time in three games. Brady's third-and-1 interception at Indianapolis in Week 11 enabled the Colts to score a quick touchdown on a short field, reducing a 14-3 lead to 14-10. At Green Bay, the Patriots scored quickly enough to leave Aaron Rodgers with enough time to move the Packers into scoring position. Green Bay's touchdown right before the half extended a 16-14 lead to 23-14 -- after New England scored with 1:09 on the clock.
"Very unusual clock mismanagement by Belichick," a veteran assistant coach said.
6. The contrast between Bengals coach Marvin Lewis and Buccaneers counterpart Lovie Smith is striking enough to merit another look.
Smith and the Buccaneers lost a game Sunday after a penalty for 12 men on the field knocked them out of field goal range. Did Tampa Bay lose this game before the season? That question came to mind based on how Smith and Lewis handled their coaching staffs during the offseason.
While Cincinnati had in-house replacements ready to take over when its coordinators took head-coaching jobs (Gruden in Washington and Mike Zimmer in Minnesota), the Buccaneers went into the season with a defense-minded head coach (Smith) and an offensive staff heavy on coaches from the college ranks. There were no NFL-proven candidates to take over as offensive coordinator once health issues sidelined Jeff Tedford. Because coordinators are responsible for determining which personnel groups are on the field, it's fair to wonder whether the Buccaneers would have incurred that penalty if their offensive staff had been in place as planned.
They might have. The final minutes of a game can be particularly chaotic along the sideline. While coordinators call out personnel groups, position coaches sometimes determine which specific players go into the game based on factors such as fatigue or injuries. These dynamics are tougher to manage on the defensive side because so many players rotate through the line and various sub packages in the secondary. In this case, the Buccaneers needed receiver Robert Herron to leave the field once coaches called for a personnel group with lineman Oniel Cousins as an additional tight end. The Bucs have had significant injury issues at tight end. Herron is a rookie. The team's tight ends coach and receivers coach have a combined 40 NFL games as position coaches.
Smith took the blame for the penalty. He is responsible ultimately.
Separately, it was a tough sell when NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino suggested the league office was about to stop play upon discovering Tampa Bay had 12 players on the field. The officials on the field did not appear close to acting on new information delivered by the league. None of them was blowing a whistle. This play reflected failure by Tampa Bay players and coaches, failure by officials on the field, failure by two replay officials in the booth and failure by the officiating office, unless you think the league really was on the verge of stopping play. Lewis and the Bengals were the clear winners here.
7. Drew Stanton could be following in Carson Palmer's footsteps a little too closely for the Arizona Cardinals' good.
Stanton has a 3-3 starting record with five touchdown passes and five interceptions in his first six starts under head coach Bruce Arians. That is what any team might expect from its backup. It's also pretty close to what Arizona got from Palmer through his first six starts under Arians. Palmer went 3-3 with seven touchdowns and 11 picks in those initial starts last season.
Palmer took off on an upward trajectory in the second half of last season. He and Arians said it took time for players to grasp the new offense. Stanton already knew the offense when he took over for an injured Palmer this season, but he had not played much. Arizona needs more from Stanton before its lead over Seattle in the NFC West, down to one game, disappears entirely.
When the Cardinals hired Arians, the new coach said 60 minutes of consistent effort was enough to beat most teams. He has said Arizona hasn't gotten that in its past two games. If it's any consolation, Stanton has much better numbers at home even though he faced two very good defenses there (San Francisco, Detroit). The Cardinals are coming off back-to-back road games on opposite coasts. A victory at home against Kansas City and a Seahawks loss at Philadelphia would buy needed breathing room for Arizona.
8. The losses are piling up for a few veteran coaches with Super Bowl appearances on their résumés.
Ken Whisenhunt has a 3-21 record in his past 24 games as a head coach with Arizona and Tennessee. Lovie Smith is now 5-15 in his past 20 games with Chicago and Tampa Bay. Tom Coughlin has a 13-23 record in his past 36 games with the New York Giants. How bad is that? No other team with a record that poor over the same span has kept its head coach, although the New York Jets could change that. A loss to the Miami Dolphins on Monday night would leave them with a 13-23 record in their past 36 games.
The field goal Jacksonville made to hand Coughlin's team its seventh consecutive defeat felt like an era-ending kick in the gut from a Giants perspective.
9. There is a method to Pete Carroll's madness over officiating.
Carroll put out the word that he wants officials to start calling more penalties on Seattle's opponents, who are averaging five penalties per game -- the fourth-lowest figure for any team's opponents since at least the 2002 season, if it holds through the end of the year. Carroll said his championship teams at USC went through similar experiences.
Would officials really go easier on opponents after a championship season? There is no evidence of that happening in the NFL recently. When Baltimore defended its title last season, the Ravens' opponents incurred more penalties than any other team's opponents incurred in 2013. Super Bowl winners' opponents have ranked about 13th on average in penalties since 2002. Defending champs have ranked about 12th.
Carroll's politicking could serve the Seahawks well simply by raising awareness. His team has a reputation around the league for testing the rules governing how cornerbacks defend receivers. It probably doesn't hurt Seattle's cause if the public and officials know Seattle's opponents aren't drawing many flags.
10. Drew Brees rediscovered a part of the New Orleans Saints' offense that had been missing.
The 69-yard touchdown pass Brees threw to receiver Kenny Stills up the right sideline in Pittsburgh caught my attention because New Orleans has struggled to score on those plays all season.
In analyzing Brees last week, I realized his numbers had fallen off considerably when targeting wide receivers as opposed to tight ends or running backs. A closer look showed those numbers had fallen most significantly on shorter passes over the middle and longer ones outside the yard-line numbers. The pass to Stills marked the first time all season Brees completed a touchdown pass to a wide receiver on a perimeter pass thrown at least 15 yards past the line of scrimmage. He had averaged better than four per season through 11 games over his previous eight seasons in Sean Payton's offense.
The Saints drafted Stills to provide those impact plays on the perimeter. The Saints' remaining four opponents -- Carolina, Chicago, Atlanta and Tampa Bay -- have allowed six touchdowns on these deep perimeter throws to wide receivers. Only New Orleans has allowed more this season (seven). In other words, the downfield passing game could be looking up for Brees.
