John Harbaugh, Giants Reportedly Expected to Land HC Contract After NFL Rumors, What’s Next for NYG?

The New York Giants reportedly are expected to hire former Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh as their next head coach, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Harbaugh will take over for Mike Kafka, who assumed the interim role after the firing of Brian Daboll. Daboll guided New York to the playoffs in 2022 but then won just 11 games over the next three seasons before his dismissal.

Harbaugh was the biggest name in this year’s hiring cycle. He had a .614 winning percentage in his 18 years with the Baltimore Ravens, and they reached the playoffs 12 times during his tenure.

The Ravens’ inability to get over the hump despite having Lamar Jackson at quarterback eventually cost Harbaugh his job, though. For all of the success he delivered in the regular season, three total postseason wins between 2015-25 stand out as well.

A change of scenery may be refreshing for the 63-year-old, and the Ravens’ floor the last few seasons is better than what the Giants did on the field.

Still, some in the Big Apple will question whether his best days as a coach are behind him.

For the Giants, expectations weren’t through the roof before the 2025 season kicked off. They were coming off a three-win campaign and didn’t make a ton of marquee additions.

That Daboll only made it 10 games speaks to how bad things got relative to that low bar.

The nadir came when New York allowed 33 points in the fourth quarter to the Denver Broncos. It was up 18 with just over 10 minutes left in the game and couldn’t hold onto a win.

That triggered a four-game losing streak that ownership and the front office deemed enough to warrant a coaching change.

The performance of rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart at least provided a glimmer of hope for the future. The first-round pick threw for 2,272 yards, 15 touchdowns and five interceptions in 12 starts.

Those weren’t gaudy numbers but more than a lot of people were expecting from a prospect generally considered to be a long-term project.

When discussing the Giants’ vacancy after Daboll’s firing, The Athletic’s Robert Mays argued on The Athletic Football Show the roster was set up well in some other key areas as well.

“They have real players at some of the premium positions that are hardest to find,” he said. “They have a borderline All-Pro left tackle when he’s healthy (Andrew Thomas), who’s played at an extremely high level since he came back this year. You have a really, really talented receiver (Malik Nabers) who has a torn ACL right now that will be coming back. You have multiple pass-rushers. Like, you have three potential building on the defensive line with Abdul Carter, Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns.”

The franchise is set up to kick-start any rebuild in 2027. It will have a ton of salary cap space by then, and some of the bigger contracts on the books will be easy to dump because they’re expiring salaries.

Throw in the allure of coaching in New York and it’s easy to see why Harbaugh signed up for the job.

The pitfalls of the gig are obvious when the Giants have made the playoffs just twice since winning a Super Bowl in 2011. That mediocrity has spanned multiple coaching and general manager regimes.

Co-owner John Mara isn’t bad in the traditional sense. He doesn’t regularly meddle in team affairs or publicly undermine organizational leaders. Still, Mara has been a common denominator in the long-term malaise.

And for as much promise as Dart showed under center, Mac Jones, C.J. Stroud and Jayden Daniels to some degree are examples of how young quarterbacks don’t develop on a linear arc.

As opposing teams get more tape on Dart, they might diagnose serious flaws in his game that are tough for him to overcome.

The fact the 22-year-old entered the NFL’s concussion protocol multiple times is concerning, too. He needs to learn how to avoid contact better, and curbing a player’s instincts on the field can be difficult.

If Dart isn’t the guy moving forward, then the Giants will once again be stuck looking for a new long-term solution.

With a few rare exceptions, nobody usually knows for certain how successful a coaching hire will be. The pieces are there for Harbaugh to turn New York into a consistent winner, yet nobody will be shocked if everything is starting to unravel in a few years.