Jim Harbaugh Jets Rumors Are Scintillating, But ...

The Jets are widely expected to have a head coach opening after this season, and it’s a year where there aren’t so many obvious candidates in the ranks. So, it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that Jim Harbaugh is a name that has come up for that job.

Mike Florio reports that the Jets are “planning to make a run” at Harbaugh, adding that “[t]he thinking is that the Jets plan to make Harbaugh a financial offer he can’t refuse, well in excess of the $7 million he earns at Ann Arbor.”

It is fascinating to think about. Mike McCarthy is a name that has come up numerous times the past couple weeks in connection with the Jets; you’d have to think if you took a poll of the fan base a majority would prefer Harbaugh.

Nevertheless, I’d personally be stunned if Harbaugh leaves Michigan, even if the Jets do back up an 18-wheeler full of cash. Harbaugh is 0-4 against Ohio State, and the Wolverines have not even made a Big Ten title game, let alone sniffed the College Football Playoff. To leave his alma mater now would be to willfully admit defeat.

(For what it’s worth, and coach’s words don’t always mean a whole lot this time of year, Harbaugh has been on record that he is staying at Michigan.)

You can’t fault the Jets for trying and there are a lot of attractive aspects about their job — big market, Sam Darnold on a rookie contract for three more years, mountains of cap space that a candidate as desirable as Harbaugh could possibly also leverage control over — but I just keep coming back to the fact that there won’t ever stop being solid NFL jobs available to Harbaugh and that right now it’d be a really bad look for him to leave Michigan without having achieved anything notable there.