Do you remember the old question a player would get after winning the championship? What are you going to do next? They’d say they were going to Disneyland. This is not the case for Jim Harbaugh, the head coach at University of Michigan coming off the field after his last game winning the National Championship for the Wolverines. Mission accomplished – he has restored the Wolverine football program. Now Harbaugh will take on a much tougher and challenging project: the mess in LA called the Chargers. Harbaugh will take a job with one of the worst owners in sports, Dean Spanos, and his family that moved the Chargers from San Diego to ride the coattails of the other LA team, the Rams. The Chargers hardly even have a fan base as Harbaugh has to climb Mt. Everest in this job to get a franchise respectable again that has never won a Superbowl and has only made it once to the promised land.

This is not Jim Harbaugh’s first rodeo in the NFL as a coach. From 2011-2014, he coached the 49ers and was named coach of the year in his first ever season. Harbaugh had the 49ers in the Superbowl as he faced his brother John who is still the head coach of the Ravens, and lost. Harbaugh went 44-19-1 for the 49ers which is one of the best winning percentages of all-time in the NFL. Everywhere Harbaugh has coached, he turned around a very bad situation into a good one after he left town. His Collegiate record as a head coach is 144-42. For the University of Michigan, he went 86-25 with 3 Big Ten Championships along 3 straight playoff appearances. Harbaugh started his head coaching journey at San Diego State. Then he took the job at Stanford University and was very successful. Coaching is in his blood as his father was a coach, and we know about his brother.

I remember when Jim Harbaugh was playing quarterback for the Bears. Mike Ditka was the Head Coach and he went ballistic at his quarterback on the side line about some miscommunication on the offense. Harbaugh had legendary coaches coaching him even at his Alma Mater. He had Bo Schembechler running the Wolverines’ side line. Harbaugh played 14 seasons in the NFL with 4 franchises starting with the Bears, Colts & then Ravens. Harbaugh finished his playing career playing the last two seasons for the Chargers. Harbaugh only completed 58.8% of his passes back in the day. He had a losing record behind center, going 64-74. He finished with 129 touchdown passes along with 117 interceptions. No wonder Ditka was always riding him. Harbaugh is a better Head Coach than actually a player if you go by wins and losses.

So why the Chargers? Simple. The Chargers have a franchise quarterback in place with Justin Herbert. The Chargers in the past had quality quarterbacks like Dan Fouts and Phillip Rivers. The Chargers’ only Superbowl appearance was led by Stan Humpries, a journeyman quarterback. The Chargers franchise has played in 31 total playoff games as a franchise. The Chargers are all-time 12-19 in those playoff games. They are 1-3 all-time in conference championships. Jim Harbaugh would be replacing Brandon Staley, who was a colossal moron, as he takes too many chances giving up for-sure points and turning over the ball on downs to the opposing teams. Staley had this Chargers team in post-season in the 2022-23 season where they blew a huge first half lead to the Jaguars and were one and done. The Chargers have play makers on offense like star running back, Austin Ekeler, and wide receiver Keenan Allen who is a catching machine. On defense, Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack are two stud pass rushers. Yes, the Chargers have pieces in place on both sides of the football that make this an interesting job.

The problems Jim Harbaugh will face taking this job come from playing in the AFC West where Patrick Mahomes is the king. The Chargers going into next season will be 20 something million over the cap so Harbaugh will have some hard decisions to make. The rest of the AFC West could be challenging as Sean Payton had the Broncos in the thick of things after they started off looking like the worst team in the league. Payton has won a Superbowl with the Saints and I can see the Broncos becoming a thorn in the side of these division foes for years to come. The Raiders showed a backbone with toughness when Antonio Pierce took over as the interim coach after Josh McDaniels was fired. Now the Raiders took the interim tag off Pierce as he will the guy. Don’t expect the Raiders to be a walk in the park. Harbaugh has taking that 49er team to the Superbowl with the likes of Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick as his quarterbacks. Harbaugh may gut this team first and build around some of the pillars like Justin Herbert. Everywhere Harbaugh has coached, he has found a way to make the franchise or program better before he left town. This is a great move by a bad owner. The Chargers teams have always been interesting when they played in San Diego. I rooted some of those teams on. Some great players have wore the bolts on those helmets. Even before the move, the Spanos soured me on this franchise. I know in sports you can’t pick your owner. Then they rip all the hearts out of their fan base in San Diego. GREED!!! Not going to sugar coat it. In a way you have to root for a guy like Harbaugh, who put his heart into each game as a player. He was not the best at his position. He learned from the game he played, and other coaches and family, to harness all this in to be a great football head coach. He may be the guy and the Chargers may be the ones to overthrow those annoying Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. Sometimes you need to root for your enemies so they can knock off a bigger one. I don’t know if it will be quick, but the Charge will happen and the Chiefs are wearing red.