The Baltimore Ravens announced they are extending John Harbaugh for four more years. It’s the best possible situation for this organization and its fans.
After months of questions surrounding what the Baltimore Ravens were going to do with head coach John Harbaugh, those questions finally have answers.
The Ravens announced on Twitter Thursday they’ve given Harbaugh a four-year extension, keeping him in the locker room through the 2023 season.
This is the smartest thing the Ravens have done in a while. It never made sense that the Ravens would look into moving on from Harbaugh. He’s a very good coach, seems to get good things out of his players, and his coaches like to stick around, instead of running towards other organizations.
Even if he’s had a few down seasons, a lot of that was beyond his control.
Harbaugh might be the most underrated coach in the league. He’s been with the Ravens for 11 seasons, and has one losing season. In 2015 they went 5-11. That is the only blip on Harbaugh’s record in more than a decade in Baltimore.
This season, Harbaugh was in charge of a team with the No. 1 defense in the league and the ninth-best offense. They were a scary team, but Lamar Jackson just had a rough start to their first playoff game. That happens with a rookie, but everything else went really well this year.
This is a coach that constantly finds the best way to utilize his team’s talent.
If the Ravens were going to move on from Harbaugh this season, their options were limited at best. The only coach to get interest from more than one team was Kliff Kingsbury, the guy who got fired from Texas Tech. There were eight teams looking to replace their coach.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers might have hired the best guy in Bruce Arians, but that’s still very questionable with his health.
No matter who the Ravens would have replaced Harbaugh with, it would have been a downgrade. He’s arguably a top five coach in this league, and there’s no argument he’s in the top 10. No team that has a new coach will be considered in the top 10 of current coaches.
Whoever would have hired Harbaugh would have been.
The Ravens now know they have a likely coach and quarterback duo for the next half decade. The teams in the best position are the ones that can pair these two pieces together for the foreseeable future. Jackson and Harbaugh are key in putting the Ravens back into Super Bowl contention.