We’ve officially entered the third week of the Minnesota Vikings’ leadership search. However, the Vikings now have a new general manager in charge of the front office. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah blew fans away with his humility, brilliance, authenticity, and unwavering commitment to his process through collaboration. While no one has ever won anything after a press conference, Adam Gase and Nick Sirianni have taught us that botched press conferences can seriously derail their momentum.
Ask Chicago Bears fans how they feel about the introductory press conferences for general manager Ryan Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus.
Nothing fires me up more than a football guy giving a corny cliché after reading it off a piece of paper. Who else is ready to run through a brick wall right about now?!
All jokes aside, considering the Wilfs were down to Adofo-Mensah and Poles as the finalists for the GM job in Minnesota, the dynamic between the now divisional foes should add an exciting new layer to the rivalry between the fanbases.
Now that the first domino has fallen for the Vikings, the focus shifts entirely on landing a head coach. And with the flurry of news that came out Monday night, the process has taken a dramatic, unexpected turn.
With the Vikings conducting interviews with finalist candidates Kevin O’Connell and Raheem Morris of the NFC Champion Los Angeles Rams on Monday evening, Tom Pelissero dropped back-to-back seismic news bombs onto the football world.
In a matter of four minutes, Skoliders officially found themselves fully entrenched in the Jim Harbaugh sweepstakes while also finding out that highly sought-after San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans declined a second interview.
Whoa.
After tearing through the playoffs, Ryans looks like he’s returning to coordinate Kyle Shanahan’s defense for a second season. His defense dismantled some of the best offenses in the league: the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, and Los Angeles Rams.
Exit Ryans, and enter Harbaugh Mania. Or out with the new, in with the old.
We all know by now that Harbaugh was an immediate culture builder and winner from the moment he took the 49ers job in 2011. Despite elevating San Francisco to a perennial NFC power, owner Jed York and GM Trent Balke sent Harbaugh packing following an 8-8 season in 2014. To this day, Harbaugh still has the fifth-best winning percentage in NFL history.
But as it pertains to a potential fit with Harbaugh and the Minnesota Vikings, history has shown us that Skoliders who yearn for an offense that maximizes Justin Jefferson with an aggressive aerial attack might need to reset expectations. Throughout Harbaugh’s four-year tenure in San Francisco, his team won nearly 70% of its games by leaning into a rushing attack that undoubtedly neglected the passing game. King Khaki’s offenses ranked 31st, 31st, 32nd, and 29th in pass attempts.
And for a fanbase that is already concerned over Jefferson potentially exiting à la Stefon Diggs, Percy Harvin, and Randy Moss, those kinds of passing numbers are more than enough to be the catalyst behind a Jefferson trade demand night terror or two.
But let’s take a step back for a moment before we take a turn to negative town and start living in our fears.
To Harbaugh’s credit, he inherited a 49ers roster that was coming off losing seasons in seven of the previous eight years. Alex Smith was widely regarded as a massive bust, and the defense was mediocre at best. Harbaugh didn’t enter the NFL with a “My way or the highway” schematic approach to his offense.
Instead, he evaluated his new roster and determined that offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s ground-and-pound philosophy would give the 49ers the best chance at winning football games. And with Vic Fangio, who ran Harbaugh’s defense at Stanford before following him back to the NFL in 2011, the Niners became the NFL’s best defense overnight.
There are so many varieties of NFL head coaches. You have your young, flavor-of-the-month offensive hotshots. You have your grizzled Bill Parcells wannabes. And you have your run-through-a-brick-wall leader types. Also, if history has taught us anything, both Jim and John Harbaugh are the quintessential CEO types. They consistently demonstrate their superpower of building winning cultures by bringing in the right coaches and schemes that are near-perfect fits for their players.
Let’s take it back a few years. After John Harbaugh won a Super Bowl with Joe Flacco and his scorching-hot run through the postseason in 2012, the Baltimore Ravens’ offense routinely found themselves as league leaders in passing volume. But as the wheels started falling off towards the tail end of Flacco’s career, it didn’t take long for John Harbaugh to make an incredibly bold decision to overhaul his offense — and franchise.
The Ravens traded up in the 2018 NFL Draft for Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson, and Harbaugh had a plan for his new dynamic quarterback. After Jackson finished the 2018 season as the starter over Flacco, John Harbaugh promoted Greg Roman — the same coordinator that his brother Jim had in San Francisco — to coordinate Baltimore’s offense in 2019.
Roman’s zone-read scheme was a perfect fit for Jackson, and the Ravens led the NFL in offense in their first full season together. Jackson captured the MVP award that year. Roman has been Jackson’s OC for three years, and Baltimore’s success offensively is a direct testament to John Harbaugh’s ability to surround his players with the right system that fits their strengths.
Just because Jim Harbaugh won in San Francisco by pounding teams into oblivion with his run game doesn’t mean that a Harbaugh-led offense in Minnesota would replicate the same scheme. Both Jim and John Harbaugh are masterful talent evaluators who know all the right buttons to push — or schemes to implement — that result in winning a ton of football games on Sundays.
And with a combined record of 181-107-1 (.626 winning percentage) and 16-11 in the playoffs, the capabilities of the CEO head coaching style of the Harbaugh brothers speak for themselves.
Rest assured, if Jim Harbaugh is the next head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, he would bring with him the most effective offensive scheme. It would not only bring out the best in Jefferson, but it would be a system that would allow Minnesota’s All-Pro receiver to be the reason why the Vikings win meaningful games.
