When the Baltimore Ravens travel to Los Angeles to take on the Chargers for “Monday Night Football” on Nov. 25, it’ll be a Harbaugh family affair that has not occurred in over a decade.
John Harbaugh, the longtime head coach of the Ravens, will be coaching against his younger brother, Jim Harbaugh, who was named head coach of the Chargers in January.
The last time the two brothers faced off, it could not have been on a bigger stage. John Harbaugh bested his brother, who was coaching the San Francisco 49ers at the time, in the 2013 Super Bowl for his first and only championship.
After Jim Harbaugh’s stint with the 49ers ended in 2014, he became the head coach at his alma mater, the Michigan Wolverines, winning a national championship in January to cap off his run with the team amid a recruiting violation investigation from the NCAA.
The Harbaugh brothers’ matchup lands on the 63rd wedding anniversary of their parents, Jack and Jackie Harbaugh, as The Athletic noted in an August story about the coaches.
Here’s what the pair have said about each other.
Brotherly Love
In a conversation with The Athletic published in August, the Harbaughs discussed their brotherly dynamic as kids, often being on the same teams for organized sports.
“Nobody could ever ask for a better brother in every way,” Jim Harbaugh said about John Harbaugh. “I sometimes think about if he were a Bible character, which one he would be? He’d be up there with some of the greats in my mind.”
The brothers revealed more stories from their childhood in an interview posted by the Chargers in March, including their family catchphrases.
One day when Jim Harbaugh was in first grade and John Harbaugh was in third grade in Iowa City, Iowa, their father, a longtime coach, was in charge of bringing them to school in their family car.
The Harbaugh brothers came outside to find no car in the driveway, and their dad instead tasked the boys to walk to school while working on basketball drills, dribbling 100 times with the right hand and 100 with the left.
“Who’s got it better than us?” Jack Harbaugh asked his kids, Jim recalled.
“NOBODY!” John and Jim Harbaugh exclaimed back, according to Jim.
The catchphrase is now a common locker room saying for both of the brothers.
In a video interview posted by the Ravens in March, the two brothers sat beside their father Jack Harbaugh to discuss family debates.
“If John and Jim were both on your dad’s staff, who would he bark at more?” the interviewer asked.
“Jim,” said John Harbaugh, eyeing down his brother.
“Me,” said Jim Harbaugh, with the three breaking into laughter.
“Are they correct?” the interviewer asked the Harbaughs’ father.
“Yes!” he replied with a big thumbs-up.
Later, the interviewer asked Jim Harbaugh, “Is there something that John did that to this day you still take the heat for?”
“I pretty much took the heat for everything,” Jim Harbaugh jokingly replied.
A tough meeting on the field after John Harbaugh’s Super Bowl win over his brother
Immediately after winning the Super Bowl in New Orleans with the Ravens in 2013, John Harbaugh walked to the center of the field to meet with the brother he had just defeated.
“I realized that I had to go across the field and shake the other coach’s hand, but it was my brother,” John Harbaugh said at his induction into the Cradle of Coaches at Miami University the following year. “That’s a little different; that’s a little tougher.”
The two exchanged hands when John Harbaugh tried to go in for a hug.
“There will be no hug,” Jim Harbaugh declared during the exchange, according to his brother.
A decade later, Jim Harbaugh still thinks about the game and what could have been different.
“There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that game,” Jim Harbaugh told The Associated Press in February, adding, “My brother, my best friend, I love him, I’m proud of him. He earned that and he deserved that and his team did.”
John’s support for his brother’s college championship
During Michigan’s matchup against the Washington Huskies in the 2024 college football national championship game, John Harbaugh watched from the sidelines as his brother emerged victorious.
During the middle of the game, John Harbaugh went up to Jim Harbaugh on the sidelines and visibly surprised his younger brother. The two hugged and exchanged some words before Jim Harbaugh got back to the most important win of his career.
After the victory, the brothers were seen embracing in a hug on the field.
“You did it, you did it,” John Harbaugh said repeatedly to Jim Harbaugh while hugging him after the game.
After Jim Harbaugh was named the Chargers’ new head coach Jan. 24, John Harbaugh reacted at a press conference the next day.
“My thoughts are, we play them next year. So we’re looking forward to all of it,” the Ravens coach said.
“I just very happy for him, proud of him, excited for him, excited for his family,” John Harbaugh continued, later adding, “I’ll say this: The Chargers just got themselves one great coach.”
At a press conference previewing the Nov. 25 “Monday Night Football” matchup, he called his brother “one of the best coaches of his generation. Even if he weren’t my brother, I’d say the same thing.”
