The New York Giants landed a high-class head coach in John Harbaugh. 18 seasons in Baltimore with 12 playoff appearances, a Super Bowl championship, and an MVP QB isn't a track record that comes available often, and the Giants are lucky to say they were the winners of the Harbaugh sweepstakes.
Harbaugh was on the Ryan Ripken Show last week and shed some light on his dismissal with the Ravens and his new chapter in New York. After nearly two decades in Baltimore, he doesn't seem to hold any ill will towards them, and his energy has been infectious across these last couple of weeks.
"I'm ready for the next leg of the journey... I've talked to lots of coaches, you build a staff, it's tough, you know, and Ravens found that out too. It's a part of the process and a lot of fun too because you get to talk to so many coaches. You realize how many great coaches there are out there and you're trying to put it together like a puzzle so it fits the best."John Harbaugh
Beyond his excitement for his next chapter, Harbs revealed that he loves the Ravens' decision to hire his former assistant coach Jesse Minter as their next head coach. He also let Giants fans know what to expect this year. And they should be really amped up about how he answered Ripken's questions.
John Harbaugh is a lot more like Tom Coughlin than Giants fans realize
Having a disciplinarian, CEO-style head coach is worrisome to some Giants fans after the Joe Judge debacle, but John Harbaugh is not Joe Judge. One has a proven track record of NFL success, while the other looked like a bozo while taking the stand in Trinidad Chambliss' lawsuit against the NCAA.
You know the Super Bowl-winning coach is high class because he still has fond memories of his time in Baltimore. He revealed it felt a lot more like 18 months than 18 years. He also referred to it as "the best 18 years of his life", which is a sentiment that hopefully changes once next season rolls around.
Something that's also foreign for Big Blue is the top-notch coaching staff Harbaugh is assembling. The support system for Jaxson Dart (who he also compared to Lamar Jackson in this interview) is much better than it was, which means that this staff is expecting a major leap from Dart in Year 2.
The 63-year-old has echoed many of the same thoughts in his early media opportunities with the Giants, but it's been promising to hear. He's straight up just a football guy who has a similar philosophy to Tom Coughlin, which is the leader of men this franchise has clearly been searching for.
He's making it clear that, unlike Brian Daboll or Ben McAdoo, he doesn't tolerate any nonsense. That doesn't mean he'll run these guys until they pass out in practice like Judge, but he's going to stop at nothing to ensure the G-Men return to the mountaintop and remind fans why they're a historic franchise.