Since 2019, Coach A has won 76 games, won three division titles, made the playoffs six times, had their quarterback win two MVPs, and reached two conference finals.
Coach B has won 76 games, won three division titles, made the playoffs five times, had their quarterback win two MVPs, and reached one conference final.
Would you swap the two coaches? Of course not. They have almost identical records. Coach A is Matt LaFleur. Coach B is John Harbaugh. It's why the Harbaugh-to-Packers buzz never made any sense, even when Adam Schefter kept connecting the two.
Schefter wasn't the only one, either, as ESPN's Dan Graziano said Green Bay "would be a spot to watch" for Harbaugh if the job became available.
Well, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network is here to put the record straight. According to Pelissero, the Packers never had any interest in hiring Harbaugh.
"So on the same day, John Harbaugh -- whom the Packers never discussed, contacted or pursued -- signs on with the Giants and Matt LaFleur signs his extension with the Packers," Pelissero posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Packers reportedly never discussed hiring John Harbaugh despite the buzz
Okaaay, Tom. Was the part about the Packers' lack of interest necessary in that post? Pelissero really wanted to make it clear that Green Bay had no intention of hiring Harbaugh. But it at least confirmed what fans had thought all along.
Not only did they not contact or pursue Harbaugh, but they didn't even discuss the possibility.
Joking aside, it aligns with a report from Dianna Russini and Matt Schneidman of The Athletic. They wrote that team president Ed Policy "didn't spend much time considering whether to offer LaFleur an extension" this past week, and the ugly loss to the Chicago Bears "had almost no bearing." The plan all along was to give LaFleur a new deal.
Nobody bought the Harbaugh buzz (we wrote about it earlier this week), and for good reason. As we've established, LaFleur and Harbaugh have similar records over the past seven years, which is when LaFleur got his start as a head coach. Yes, Harbaugh has won a Super Bowl, but that was during the Obama administration.
Since then, the Ravens have fallen well short of expectations in the playoffs, even with Lamar Jackson.
LaFleur's teams have frustrated Packers fans for a tendency to collapse in the fourth quarter, but Harbaugh's Ravens owned that market. No team loves to self-destruct like them. The Ravens have thrown away 46 fourth-quarter leads over the past 18 years, per NFL.com. Only one team has more in that span.
Harbaugh to Green Bay never made any sense. Instead, the Packers maintain continuity with LaFleur, while Harbaugh tries to turn the Giants into contenders.
The moral of the story? If you ever think the Packers may have been interested in Harbaugh, remember what Pelissero said: They never contacted him. They never pursued him. They didn't even discuss him.