The Jim Harbaugh Chicago Bears rumors were pretty much inevitable. Much of it simply due to timing. The 56-year old head coach sits in the last year of his contract at Michigan. A lot of fans want him out. Some believe he’s just waiting for an opportunity to jump back to the NFL. At the same time, Matt Nagy is watching his grip on the Bears job slip away. It is such an easy connection to make.
Harbaugh, the former Bears quarterback who led the San Francisco 49ers to three NFC championships in a row returning home to Chicago to assume the mantle held by mentor Mike Ditka. The story writes itself. Several people hold a firm belief the coach will pounce at the opportunity if the job does open up next month.
Is this true though? At least one man has doubts.
Jay Glazer is one of the more plugged-in insiders in the NFL. His work for FOX Sports has proven that over the years. He has tight relationships with several players and coaches around the league and he’s never reported something he wasn’t 100% confident in. So when he appeared on the Tiki & Tierny show and was asked about Harbaugh’s status? He seemed pretty confident in one thing.
The idea that several NFL teams are ready to knock down his door to hand him a job simply isn’t true. Interest in him is limited and it’s been that way for some time.
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“There hasn’t been the last few years, so I don’t know why it would suddenly come to light this year. There might be, but I personally think he’s better suited for college.”
When pressed on the matter of whether he’s heard any NFL rumblings at all? He was pretty blunt.
“No. I have not.”
This would seem to poke holes in the idea that the Bears are merely waiting for a chance to offer him a contract. Especially since they probably will seek out a general manager before anything else.
Jim Harbaugh Chicago Bears rumors need to settle down
The reality is the Bears jumping in on Harbaugh this early never made sense. The standard operating procedure for the McCaskey family going back many years is they hire the GM and the GM hires the head coach. It was true of Jerry Angelo, Phil Emery, and Ryan Pace. So the only way this would be different is if the Bears really wanted Harbaugh and were willing to pair him with a GM he has personal ties to. Similar to what Buffalo did with Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane.
That doesn’t feel like something the McCaskeys would do. They’ve never liked the head coach having a ton of power. At least not since the Dave Wannstedt experiment. On top of that is Harbaugh’s reputation. He’s known for being a big personality who has a lot of opinions and isn’t afraid to get in your face if necessary. Chicago has consistently avoided coaches like that since Ditka left. For all the talk about how well the coach did in San Francisco, it’s easy to forget the reasons he left.
A power struggle with the GM and word the players were tired of him.
Stuff like that doesn’t just go away. It’s why the Jim Harbaugh Chicago Bears rumors were always a little iffy, to begin with. That isn’t to say it can’t or won’t happen. The connections are impossible to ignore. Yet these words by Glazer bring back into focus the reality that Harbaugh’s star isn’t nearly as bright as it was five years ago. If he couldn’t elevate Michigan to the top of the Big Ten, why should the Bears believe he can get them to a championship?