John Harbaugh, the winningest coach in Ravens franchise history, has been signed to a three-year contract extension, the team announced on March 29, keeping the league’s third-longest-tenured coach under contract through the 2025 season.
Harbaugh’s contract was set to expire after the 2022 season, but owner Steve Bisciotti had no desire for Harbaugh to be coaching as a lame duck in the final year of his deal. In past public sessions with the media, Bisciotti has stressed the value of organizational continuity, and he has steadfastly maintained confidence in the coach he boldly hired in 2008 without any NFL experience as a head coach or as an offensive or defensive coordinator.
Since then, Harbaugh, 59, has guided the Ravens to a regular-season record of 137-88 and postseason berths in nine of his 14 seasons. His teams are 11-8 in the playoffs, punctuated by a Super Bowl title after the 2012 season.
Harbaugh’s teams reached the postseason in his first five seasons as coach, then endured a stretch of three straight seasons in which they missed the playoffs from 2015-2017. They returned to the postseason in 2018, the rookie year of quarterback Lamar Jackson, who blossomed into the league’s Most Valuable Player a year later as he led the Ravens to a 14-2 record. Harbaugh was named the NFL’s Coach of the Year that season.
But the Ravens have faltered in the postseason since their Super Bowl title. In four subsequent postseason appearances, the Ravens have gone 2-4 and have not advanced past the divisional round.
This past year, the Ravens endured a rash of injuries and finished 8-9, just the second losing season in Harbaugh’s 14-year tenure. Several starters missed most or all of the season, and Jackson missed the final four games with an ankle injury. The Ravens ended the season with six straight losses.
Known for relying on analytics but at times channeling a gut feel for the moment, Harbaugh has always been among the most aggressive NFL coaches when it comes to going for it on fourth down or playing for a two-point conversion.
This past season, the Ravens twice opted against a potential game-tying extra-point kick in the closing seconds, trying instead to win the game with a two-point conversion. They failed in both cases — against Pittsburgh and Green Bay — and lost each game by one point.
Decisions like that, and the team’s recent playoff struggles, have been fodder for his critics, but Harbaugh is widely viewed as one of the best coaches and brightest minds in the game.
With Sean Payton leaving the New Orleans Saints this past offseason, Harbaugh is now the third-longest tenured coach in the league behind Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots and Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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