Starting this week, former Ravens coach John Harbaugh will attack the interview process with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. And with leverage the NFL hasn’t seen in decades.
Harbaugh has multiple options for his next stop. He’s being selective. And he could end up having even more choices, based on what happens in Green Bay and (if the Bills lose today) Buffalo.
He’s in position to request a very large salary. He’s in position to seek control over the roster. He’s in position to ask for the team to let him hire a General Manager, even if it means firing the one they currently have.
That doesn’t mean everyone would do it. But it only takes one who is sufficiently desperate to give Harbaugh what he wants. And if Harbaugh gives a little on one term, he could get more on another.
Harbaugh also has another potential play, one that we addressed on PFT Live after the Ravens moved on. He could take a year off and work in TV, like Sean Payton did four years ago. It would make Harbaugh the odds-on, A-list candidate throughout the next season, hovering over every hot seat as the next coach, if the current coach gets fired.
If Harbaugh decides to wait, the hot spots for 2027 would be (possibly) the Jets, the Bills (if they don’t make a change this year), the Bengals, the Colts, the Chiefs (if Andy Reid decides to retire), the Cowboys, the Commanders, the Buccaneers, the Panthers, and the Saints.
Either way, Harbaugh’s effort to explore his next coaching job starts soon. And he could decide to take a job now, or to take a job later.
After Bears coach Ben Johnson delivered a four-letter message to the Packers in the locker room after Saturday night’s win over Green Bay, Johnson took to the podium to explain that his team perceived disrespect in advance of the third ever playoff meeting between the hundred-year rivals.
“There was probably a little bit more noise coming out of their building up north to start the week, which we heard loud and clear, players and coaches alike,” Johnson said.
Johnson didn’t specify the noise. And if there was any, it wasn’t loud enough to rise above the noise of a noisy week of NFL news.
As noted by ESPN.com, Packers receiver Christian Watson and cornerback Keisean Nixon said they wanted to face Chicago in the playoffs. Also, Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley told reporters during his midweek press conference, “We are not going to be done, so I will see you guys next week.”
Whatever it was, Johnson and the Bears saw it, and they milked it.
“It definitely got us riled up,” Bears safety Kevin Byard III said. “It got us amped up for the game.”
The point is this. They can act like they don’t listen. But they do. They all do. And for any players or coaches who may create some noise, it’s the NFL’s version of the Miranda warnings.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
With 1:48 to play on Saturday night against the Packers, the Bears had a first and 10 on the Green Bay 25. There was no reason to try to score a touchdown on the next play. Which made it the ideal time to go to the end zone on the next play.
Coach Ben Johnson called a fake screen, with three receivers lined up to the left. Quarterback Caleb Williams pumped toward receiver Luther Burden III. Receiver DJ Moore slipped behind a defensive back who bit on fake. And Williams found Moore for the game-winning touchdown.
“It’s perfect call,” Williams told reporters after the win. “We ended up throwing a screen earlier in the game. And so it sets it up, you know, to the same side. And then, being able to have that play call that we worked for, I think, the past three or four weeks and, you know, just didn’t use it in those other games and then in the right moment, at the right time, Coach calls it, just as he does. And the guys did a great job selling it. Obviously, DJ made a great catch, just put the ball out there for him to go out there, make a catch for us, and go win a game.”
Williams knew the play was going to work, based on what he saw before the snap.
“Yeah, once we lined up, actually knew that we were about to hit it, just off the demeanor of the guys on the other side of the ball, just had a feeling that that was going to be the one,” Williams said. “And like I said, the guys did a great job. O-line did a great job blocking. The guys did a great job over there selling the fake and then and then obviously DJ going up the sideline.”
By calling the play with that much time left, Johnson also showed plenty of faith in the defense to keep the Packers out of the end zone. And while it got a little too close for comfort, it worked. The Bears kept the Packers from scoring, and the fake screen touchdown ended up being the difference in the most compelling postseason game in Chicago Bears history.
We’ve got another potential source off between Ian Rapoport and Adam Schefter regarding John Harbaugh.
Earlier this week, Rapoport declared that Harbaugh had lost the locker room in Baltimore. Schefter said that “couldn’t be any less true.”
Now, as to one of Harbaugh’s potential destinations, Rapoport said before Saturday night’s Packers-Bears playoff game that coach Matt LaFleur and the Packers plan to discuss an extension after the season ends, and that LaFleur “is not going to be judged on these four quarters of football.”
Then came those four quarters of football, capped by two disastrous ones. Which opens the door for the Packers to change their plans.
On Sunday’s ESPN Postseason NFL Countdown, Schefter addressed LaFleur’s status. Schefter said new team CEO Ed Policy now has a “significant decision to make” about LaFleur, whose contract runs through 2026. Schefter also echoed something we’ve been discussing all week. John Harbaugh’s agent, Bryan Harlan, is the son of former Packers CEO Bob Harlan. And Harbaugh, who has many suitors, could choose the Packers, if the Packers job is open.
The threshold question is whether Policy would move on from LaFleur only if Policy knows he can get Harbaugh. An arrangement like that would violate the spirit of the Rooney Rule, but that happens all the time. Plenty of owners fire coaches knowing who they’re going to hire next, and then they check the boxes and bide their time and hire the person they damn well want to.
If Policy is comfortable with the possibility of not getting Harbaugh and not comfortable with the reality of keeping LaFleur after night’s debacle, it won’t matter if there isn’t a wink-nod in place with Bob Harlan’s son about Jim Harbaugh’s brother.
Regardless, and as Schefter said, Policy has a major decision to make. And if LaFleur is ultimately available, he’ll become one of the hottest candidates for one of the other eight vacancies.
The league office continues to apply its own interpretation to the catch rule. One which focuses exclusively on the third step in the process of completing the catch being the receiver getting a third foot down.
In his weekly blink-and-you-missed-it visit to NFL Network’s four-hour pregame show, league officiating spokesman Walt Anderson discussed a pair of plays from the Packers-Bears playoff game that involved the third act of catching a pass. As to both of them, Anderson made it clear that, for the folks who run the replay process, the third step is the end-all, be-all to satisfying the final element.
For the third-quarter, third-down catch by tight end Cole Kmet that was fumbled and recovered by the Bears for what would have been a first down, Anderson focused solely on whether Kmet had gotten a third step down before the ball came out.
But the rule (as explained after last month’s erroneous decision to overturn a touchdown catch by Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely) allows the process to be completed without a third step hitting the ground.
From the official rulebook, Rule 8, Article 1, Section 3: “A forward pass is complete (by the offense) or intercepted (by the defense) in the field of play, at the sideline, or in the end zone if a player, who is inbounds: (a) secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground; and (b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any part of his body other than his hands; and (c) after (a) and (b) have been fulfilled, clearly performs any act common to the game (e.g., extend the ball forward, take an additional step, tuck the ball away and turn upfield, or avoid or ward off an opponent), or he maintains control of the ball long enough to do so.”
It’s as obvious as it can be. Taking a third step is just one way to complete the process. Kmet tucked the ball away and turned upfield. More importantly, it’s impossible to find “clear and obvious” evidence that the ruling on the field that Kmet had done so was incorrect.
As a source with direct knowledge of the intended application of the catch rule explained it to PFT in the aftermath of the Likely ruling, “The catch rule now has become more about counting feet than anything else, which isn’t good.”
The same thing happened later, when Bears tight end Colston Loveland caught a pass, tucked the ball, turned upfield, and the ball was knocked out. While the ruling on the field was that the pass incomplete — and there likely wasn’t clear and obvious evidence the ruling was wrong — Anderson clung to the third-step explanation, ignoring the fact that Loveland had tucked the ball away and turned upfield.
The bottom line is that the NFL, through the replay process, continues to apply its own interpretation to the rules, ignoring the fact that the relevant language lists multiple ways to complete the process of catching a pass.
For the balance of the postseason, we can only assume that only a third step will matter. For the offseason, it’ll be for the 32 owners to decide whether to change the rules to fit the application — or whether to tell the league office to start applying the current rule as it’s written.
