What happened between Jim Harbaugh and the Minnesota Vikings?
Charles Robinson & Frank Schwab discuss Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh's close brush with the Minnesota Vikings last week. The former San Francisco 49ers head coach was reportedly close to inking a deal with Minnesota, but it ultimately fell through at the eleventh hour and the Vikings are expected to announce Los Angeles Rams OC Kevin O'Connell as their next coach after the Super Bowl. What happened to sour the deal between Harbaugh and the Vikings?
Hear the full conversation on You Pod to Win the Game. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: So the Vikings, for all intents and purposes, it looked like, hey, Jim Harbaugh is going to be the hire there.
FRANK SCHWAB: Right.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Everybody was talking about. It was like Harbaugh is going to take-- if it's offered to him, Harbaugh will take the job. All these different things. So then it didn't happen, right? And now what we're hearing is that the Vikings are probably going to hire Kevin O'Connell, who's the OC with the Los Angeles Rams. And it's like, what happened? What happened here?
So this is what I heard, OK-- this is kind of interesting-- that ownership, they didn't think it was the right fit. They just did not feel like Jim Harbaugh was going to be a right fit for the organization. Kwesi Adolfo-Mensah, obviously the general manager hire there, had a track record at least being in the 49ers when Harbaugh was there. But I heard that flat-out the reason why the hire did not happen was because ownership was just like, yeah, they didn't feel like everything that was going to come along with Harbaugh, kind of his personality, his mentality, it just didn't feel like the right fit for I guess the culture that they wanted or how they wanted to move forward.
I do think that is interesting because Harbaugh does come with a very certain personality. He comes with a very-- someone always-- and I've probably repeated this 100 times. It was one of my favorite sort of Harbaugh-isms from someone who had worked with both Jim and John. And he said to me, he goes, look, they're the same guy, same exact guy. He said the difference is John knows how to put the mask on, face the public, seem like a totally on-the-level guy. He's not going to say a lot of crazy stuff. He's very good outwardly, and he can also manage inwardly like that, he said.
But he has a lot of the same kind of, for lack of a better term, maniacal tendencies that his brother does. He can grind on you. People can get burned out under him. He said, but the difference is, Jim just doesn't have that other gear. He is what he is. And it's like he's that way outwardly, he's that way inwardly, and after a while, some people are just like, I can't do this. There's like a shelf life. You're like, I can only do this for a few years--
FRANK SCHWAB: Right
CHARLES ROBINSON: --and I feel worn out with this dude, whereas it's like John manages it a little bit better. I really wonder if that was sort of the takeaway with ownership in Minnesota that it's like, man, this might not be the right guy for us if we're looking at it like this has to be a 10 year hire, you know?
FRANK SCHWAB: Right. And I respect that. I actually do. Because you know you're getting into something different with Jim Harbaugh than any other dude we've mentioned, OK? All these other guys are conventional, so to speak, as coach. Jim's not. We knew he wasn't when he was at the 49ers. He wasn't at Michigan. You have to sign up for the Jim Harbaugh experience, basically, and you got to be good with it. And if you're not, just don't do it.
And so even though Jim Harbaugh had great success with the 49ers-- obviously, Michigan didn't work out great until the final year, and we'll see where it goes from here. He's a great football coach. He is. But there's a lot that goes into it. He's got to be a fit for your whole culture, your whole organization. So for the Vikings, the owners, to be a little uncomfortable with that-- yeah, don't just hire the guy because of the name.
You've got to be comfortable with it. You've got to know what you're getting into. And we'll see if that's the right move or not. Maybe they should have just sucked it up and been like, well, he's a little nuts, but we're getting a great coach. I don't know. But I get it. Everything that they would-- every reason they would pass, it makes sense to me.