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Ravens coach John Harbaugh comments on his job security: 'Day-to-day job'

Brian Wacker, The Baltimore Sun on

Published in Football

BALTIMORE — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh is signed through the 2028 season after inking a three-year extension in March. Whether he is still in Baltimore by then, though, perhaps remains to be seen after what has been a disastrous 2025 season.

Asked on Monday following an epitomizing 28-24 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday night at M&T Bank Stadium to drop to 7-8 and two games back of the AFC North-leading Pittsburgh Steelers with two to play if he anticipates being back next season, the 18th-year coach turned philosophical.

“One thing I always believed is coaching at any level is a day-to-day job,” Harbaugh said. “Your job is to do the best job you can today.

“It’s never been about keeping a job … We have responsibilities, we’re given opportunities to steward those responsibilities and we’re given a job to do that until you’re not.”

This season, that job has proven more laborious than in most years.

Harbaugh, who is in his 18th at the helm in Baltimore and the second-longest tenured coach in the NFL behind only Mike Tomlin, has seen his Super Bowl expectations sink to being on the brink of playoff elimination. A victory by the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Cleveland Browns next week or a Ravens loss to the Green Bay Packers would cement it.

It’s not just that the Ravens are on the precipice of failing to qualify for the postseason for just the sixth time in Harbaugh’s tenure, but how they got here that has sparked questions about Harbaugh’s future.

Though Baltimore reached the AFC championship game following a 13-4 record in 2023, there has been a regression since. Last year, the Ravens lost to the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round of the playoffs, the defeat marred by a familiar series of sloppy turnovers by quarterback Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews, who also dropped a would-be game-tying 2-point conversion pass with 1:33 remaining.

This season, there is still faint mathematical hope to reach the playoffs, but Baltimore’s fate was largely sealed with similar mistake-filled home losses to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thanksgiving night and the Steelers 10 days later.

Then came Sunday night’s debacle. Up 11 with 13 minutes to play, it marked the 12th time the Ravens have lost a game when leading by seven-plus points in the fourth quarter since 2021, the most in the NFL.

But Harbaugh, 62, said he is focused on the present and what’s ahead.

“My focus is on always and has been for the last 18 years here and the last 41 years in coaching has been to try to do the best job I can today and fight as hard as I can so the guys have the best chance to be successful today,” he said. “And anything after today, I’m not thinking about because it’s not given for me to think about.

 

“We don’t have control over that except for the job we do today. If we do a good enough job today, then the opportunity to do that job or a different job will be there tomorrow and that’s what you hope for.”

Of course, it was only this past offseason, with Harbaugh set to enter the final year of his contract, was inked to the multi-year extension by owner Steve Bisciotti that continued to make him one of the league’s highest-paid coaches in the sport.

Harbaugh is, after all, the winningest coach in the franchise’s 30-year history with an overall record of 192-123, which is also the third-most wins among active coaches in the league. Coming into this season, his 12 playoff appearances were also tied for the second-most behind only Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid’s 20.

But the Ravens are also on the verge of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

Injuries have played a part, most notably with Jackson missing three games because of a hamstring injury earlier this season before also dealing with knee, ankle and toe afflictions and now a back contusion. But so have fumbles and interceptions, penalties, a porous defense and other self-inflicted errors.

That has led to some tough conversations with Bisciotti, who Harbaugh said has also been a great leader and supportive.

“Steve wants to win,” Harbaugh said. “He wants to be successful. I’ve been around a lot of competitors in this job and even in my family and there’s no bigger competitor than Steve Bisciotti.”

Have there been talks between the two about Harbaugh’s future?

“The future is today,” the coach said. “The future is the Green Bay Packers.”

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©2025 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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