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.
The Falcons completed interviews with Klint Kubiak and Anthony Weaver for the franchise’s head coach position, the team announced Saturday.
Kubiak spent the 2025 season as the offensive coordinator for the Seahawks, after one season (2024) as offensive coordinator with the Saints.
He served as the offensive passing game specialist for the 49ers in 2023, after spending the 2022 season as the offensive passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach for the Broncos.
Kubiak was with the Vikings for two different stints in three different jobs. He was Minnesota’s offensive coordinator in 2021, quarterbacks coach in 2019-20 and began his NFL career in 2013-14 as quality control/assistant wide receivers coach. From 2016-18, he was the Broncos’ offensive assistant/quarterbacks coach.
Weaver has spent the past two seasons (2024-25) as defensive coordinator for the Dolphins. He previously was assistant head coach/defensive line coach for two seasons (2022-23) with the Ravens after one season (2021) as Baltimore’s run game coordinator/defensive line coach.
Weaver also spent five seasons (2016-20) with the Texans, serving as defensive line coach from 2016-19 before being promoted to defensive coordinator/defensive line coach in 2020.
Weaver began his NFL coaching career as an assistant defensive line coach with the Jets in 2012 before going to Buffalo as the defensive line coach for the Bills in 2013 and was defensive line coach for the Browns from 2014-15.
The Dolphins hired Jon-Eric Sullivan as their new General Manager on Friday and the team moved forward with its head coaching search on Saturday.
According to multiple reports, they had an interview with Seahawks offensive Klint Kubiak for their vacancy. The Dolphins fired Mike McDaniel on Thursday.
Kubiak also interviewed with the Falcons on Saturday. The Ravens and Raiders have also met with him in recent days and Kubiak will have to complete any remaining
interviews before the end of the wild card round. Teams interested in speaking to Kubiak after that point will have to wait until the Seahawks are eliminated or the week between the conference title games and the Super Bowl.
The Dolphins have not held any other interviews at this point, but the Sullivan hiring should spur things along on the head coaching front.
Former Ravens head coach John Harbaugh has heard from a lot of teams about their head coaching vacancies since being fired last week, but he isn’t planning to speak to all of them.
Harbaugh is expected to start interviewing with teams next week and he told Jay Glazer of Fox Sports that he is taking the weekend to narrow down the list of teams he is interested in meeting with about their openings. Harbaugh told Glazer that he expects that list to include three or four teams at the end of that process.
There’s no word about any teams that may have already made the cut and there’s a chance that there could be more openings once the first round of playoff games comes to an end with Monday’s game between the Steelers and the Texans.
Harbaugh’s plans will likely have a ripple effect on the entire head coaching cycle as teams that aren’t in the running for his services can move on while others wait to find out what Harbaugh’s next stop is going to be.
The Dolphins apparently are pleased with the efforts of consultant Troy Aikman, as it relates to their search for a General Manager.
Via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, the Hall of Fame quarterback and ESPN game analyst will continue to serve as an advisor in the process of searching for a head coach.
Obviously, the Dolphins didn’t have a head-coaching vacancy when Aikman was first retained. They now do. The fact that Mike McDaniel was fired this week serves only to bolster speculation that Aikman’s advice included making a change — especially given his frank and sharp criticism of McDaniel’s handling of the fourth quarter of a Week 15 Monday night game against the Steelers.
And while the blatant Tom Brady conflict of interest as Raiders minority owner (and now close collaborator with G.M. John Spytek regarding the Las Vegas football operation) and Fox NFL broadcaster has stretched the rubber band far enough to include less problematic dual-hat situations, Aikman’s role in the hiring of a new G.M. and head coach in Miami will give him a vested interest in the success of the Dolphins based on the advice he was paid to provide. Which will undermine, if only a bit, his objectivity throughout the tenure of G.M. Jon-Eric Sullivan and whoever becomes the successor to McDaniel.
