It was not what John Harbaugh had envisioned as the top of his sport. Rising up, he watched Tremendous Bowl-winning coaches being carried off the sector by their gamers or drenched in Gatorade showers.
However when the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 to seize Tremendous Bowl XLVII in 2013, John was stunned to seek out himself alone on the sector. Then it dawned on him. He knew what he needed to do.
After the one Tremendous Bowl that includes siblings as head coaches, John discovered his youthful brother Jim and shook his hand. Then, he began to lean in for an embrace, however Jim put an outstretched forearm into John’s chest.
“There might be no hug,” he advised John.
On Monday, John and Jim will meet once more as opposing coaches for the primary time since that historic and emotionally taxing matchup over 11 years in the past. John will take his Ravens (7-4) throughout the nation to face Jim’s Los Angeles Chargers (7-3) at SoFi Stadium (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC).
The sensation amongst members of the family is this would possibly not be Har-Bowl, Half 2. The stakes aren’t almost as excessive this time round. John and Jim’s groups are battling for AFC playoff seeding, not soccer’s largest prize — the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
However for brothers who competed within the yard and on the largest stage in soccer, bragging rights will at all times be on the road. When folks level out John is 2-0 towards Jim, John makes a correction: He is 3-0. John beat Jim in a preseason sport between the Ravens and 49ers in 2014.
John lately recited what he heard Jim say through the week main as much as their Tremendous Bowl.
“‘When that sport begins, my brothers are going to be the blokes on the sideline with me,'” John stated. “That’s the manner it really works. If you get on that sideline, you stake out your territory on a soccer sport and also you’re with your loved ones over there.”
The Harbaughs are the one brothers to face one another as head coaches within the NFL’s 105-year historical past and within the championship sport of a significant American sport. The primary assembly occurred on Thanksgiving in 2011, when the Ravens beat the 49ers 16-6. The subsequent got here within the Tremendous Bowl a season later, which was one other triumph for John — however that is not often spoken about between the brothers.
John did not hear Jim communicate positively about that sport till three years in the past. Jim had pushed together with his son Jack in an RV from Michigan to John’s home in Maryland. They went into John’s leisure barn, which has an image from the Tremendous Bowl hanging inside.
“We do not actually speak about that, will we, Dad?” stated Jack, now 12 years previous.
Jim replied, “It is okay to speak about that. That was an incredible day for Uncle John. We’re completely satisfied to have fun that.”
Others are not sure whether or not Jim has totally come to phrases with that loss.
“I feel he is nonetheless engaged on it,” stated their father, Jack.
JOHN AND JIM’S father has turn into the topic of probably the most debated Tremendous Bowl story within the household.
In response to Jim, he could not sleep after dropping the Tremendous Bowl and began channel browsing when he noticed his father on TV celebrating on the Ravens’ victory occasion. Jim stated Jack was doing the twist whereas smoking a cigar.
“That is not true,” John stated.
Jim shot again, “I do not lie.”
Jack pushed again as effectively, saying, “I’ve by no means had a cigar in my mouth.”
Tremendous Bowl XLVII is remembered as Corridor of Fame center linebacker Ray Lewis’ last sport and for an influence outage that precipitated a 34-minute blackout on the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. However for Jim it is the pivotal non-call within the last minutes that has caught with him.
With San Francisco trailing by three factors, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s fourth-down move from the 5-yard line sailed over broad receiver Michael Crabtree’s head in the long run zone. Officers decided that Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith’s contact with Crabtree was incidental, however Jim insisted a holding penalty ought to have been known as.
Jim did not communicate to John for 5 days after the Tremendous Bowl. John was on a prepare to New York, heading there to look on the “Late Present with David Letterman,” when he lastly received a name from Jim. To today, John believes Jim known as him out of worry that his older brother would inform a nationwide viewers that he hadn’t heard from him.
John recollects it being an incredible dialog till Jim introduced up the officiating.
“It was type of left at that over time,” John stated.
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John is in his seventeenth season teaching the Ravens, making him the second-longest tenured coach within the league, behind solely Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. Jim spent 4 seasons with the 49ers from 2011 to 2014 earlier than leaving to educate at Michigan for 9 years.
Each often ship sport movie to their father, a longtime school coach who received the Division I-AA title at Western Kentucky in 2002. Jack watches the tape and calls his sons together with his ideas.
These calls with Jack have been totally different since January, when Jim left Michigan after profitable the nationwide championship and returned to the NFL. There’s an understanding that you may’t inform any group secrets and techniques to Jack, particularly this previous week.
“It is each of them,” Jack stated. “They are saying, ‘I want to inform you this, but when there’s any thought that you’d share it with the opposite one, I am not going to do it.'”
JACKIE, THEIR MOTHER, says, “They’re nearly like twins.”
Born 15 months aside, John and Jim mirror one another, from soccer philosophy to wardrobe to personnel and training staffs.
Each need to play a bodily model of soccer by establishing the run, sometimes put on ball caps and khakis on the apply discipline and love parroting the mantras their father shared together with his gamers. In his first information convention, Jim advised reporters, “We will be a tricky group, a resilient group, a relentless group, a bodily group; that is what we’ll aspire to be. Do not let the powder blues idiot you.” In postgame speeches, John has shouted to his gamers, “Who’s received it higher than us?”
The similarities prolong to the locker room. Jim is teaching seven of John’s former gamers — working backs J.Okay. Dobbins and Gus Edwards, heart Sam Mustipher, security Tony Jefferson, cornerback Shaun Wade, tight finish Hayden Hurst and heart Bradley Bozeman — all of whom joined the Chargers after Jim grew to become coach in January. John’s backup quarterback is Josh Johnson, who was coached by Jim on the College of San Diego.
Even the teaching staffs are intertwined. Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman served as John’s offensive coordinator for the Ravens (2019-22) after he was the 49ers’ OC throughout Jim’s 4 seasons. Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter obtained his first NFL job below John, serving as a Ravens defensive assistant (2017-20). Three different Chargers coaches — Andy Bischoff (tight ends), Mike Devlin (offensive line) and Marc Trestman (senior offensive assistant) — beforehand labored below John. Chargers GM Joe Hortiz additionally spent 26 years within the Ravens’ entrance workplace, the place he helped construct the Tremendous Bowl-winning group that beat Jim.
When the Ravens wanted a defensive backs coach this offseason, John employed Doug Mallory, a university teammate of Jim’s who spent the previous three seasons as a defensive analyst at Michigan. Mallory remembers being in a coaches assembly with the Atlanta Falcons 5 years in the past and being requested who was probably the most aggressive particular person he knew. Mallory stated Jim on the time, however he would in all probability embody each Harbaugh brothers after working with John this yr.
“They do not wish to lose,” Mallory stated. “They will do all the pieces they’ll to win.”
Throughout this yr’s coaching camp, a video of a 60-year-old Jim taking part in reverse sled pulls went viral.
ur coach might by no means pic.twitter.com/cXolRbnX9l
— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) July 26, 2024
To not be outdone, two weeks later, the 62-year-old John joined a fumble restoration drill that concerned a participant leaping on the ball whereas others douse him with water hoses. John injured a shoulder.
Final one finest one 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/cUdc9gI77d
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) August 6, 2024
“They’re very passionate concerning the sport of soccer,” Josh Johnson stated. “It is the surroundings that they create. The winners are the employees. They will work you in a manner the place your group goes to be able to compete and may will your approach to victory.”
LONG BEFORE THEY competed in billion-dollar NFL stadiums, they tried to finest one another of their yard. John and Jim performed a childhood sport of “rooster,” firing a soccer at one another from more and more shut vary till certainly one of them dropped it or stop.
There have been additionally one-on-one battles within the driveway. Armed with tennis balls and hockey sticks, John and Jim took turns aiming at a aim made from rooster wire, although lots of the photographs ending up hitting the home windows of their one-car storage.
“We did not have any pads or something, and we might go for hours and simply tabulate who might rating extra towards the opposite man,” John stated. “Knocked out each window finally. I feel Mother put cardboard on all these home windows.”
Jim was the larger and stronger athlete. He starred as quarterback at Michigan and have become a starter for the Bears, Colts, Ravens and Chargers. John was a partial-scholarship defensive again at Miami (Ohio).
“Jim was one of the vital underrated quarterbacks within the historical past of the Nationwide Soccer League,” John stated. “And I’ve stated this many occasions.”
The Harbaughs have at all times had one another’s backs. When John was a junior cornerback at Pioneer Excessive in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jim was a freshman who watched from the stands, too younger to play on varsity.
There was a sport when John was dominating, pulling down a few passes on out patterns. Jim sensed the opposing group was organising John for a double transfer, and their father urged Jim to go inform his brother. After working down the steps, Jim yelled from the fence: “Out-and-up! Out-and-up!”
When the opposite group tried the double transfer, John was throughout it. “I am glad we received to him,” Jim stated.
Ultimately, Jim made varsity, and when he threw a move to John (who additionally performed receiver in highschool), the announcer declared, “Harbaugh to Harbaugh.”
“That was a type of moments that stick with me for a very long time,” Jackie stated.
The one time they performed on opposing groups rising up was in baseball, as youngsters. John received recruited to play for a higher-level journey group, and Jim performed for a group that was coached by their father.
Once they confronted one another, John’s group got here out on prime 1-0.
“So I received that one, too,” John stated with a smile.
WHEN THE LEAGUE introduced its 2024 schedule in Could, Jackie could not imagine the date for the Ravens-Chargers sport. It is Nov. 25, Jackie and Jack’s 63rd marriage ceremony anniversary.
“What the heck is the NFL attempting to do right here?” Jackie remembers asking.
Jack and Jackie do not watch video games collectively anymore. Jack sits in entrance of the upstairs TV, whereas Jackie watches the downstairs one.
Jackie must be on her ft when the sport is on, calling performs out and criticizing the officers. Jack is the quieter one — who has one criticism once they’re in the identical room.
“Typically she will get within the line of imaginative and prescient the place I can not see,” Jack stated.
Upon listening to this, Jackie cried out, “For God’s sake.”
When the Ravens and Chargers play in Los Angeles, Jack and Jackie might be in Florida with their daughter, Joani Crean, and her household. (Crean is married to former Indiana and Georgia males’s basketball coach Tom Crean, presently a TV analyst for ESPN.) The plan is for everybody to observe the sport collectively — in the identical room.
Requested how her father and mom will deal with this newest sport between John and Jim, Joani recollects the Tremendous Bowl when the household was in NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s field.
“It was the quietest any of us have ever been watching a sport,” she stated. “So I feel I am anticipating that … perhaps.”
For the primary time since that Tremendous Bowl, soccer’s biggest sibling rivalry might be rekindled. However these closest to John and Jim do not anticipate the identical stage of drama.
“I suppose all people’s extra weathered to it,” Joani stated. “It isn’t one thing you circle in your calendar.”
Earlier this yr, John advised Jack that Monday night time’s sport must be simpler on everybody as a result of it is not the Tremendous Bowl. This time, no matter occurs, John and Jim nonetheless have an opportunity to steer their groups to the postseason and an NFL title.
“So, when he stated that, it made sense,” Jack stated. “I type of shook my head and I stated, ‘There’s in all probability a whole lot of reality to that.'”
Kris Rhim contributed to this story.
