Why Not Interview Harbaugh and Belichick?
A year ago, there was some interest from the Carolina Panthers in Jim Harbaugh and according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, they did "dig into Bill Belichick a little bit" before eventually hiring Frank Reich.
So, why not this time around when both are officially interviewing for other head coaching jobs around the NFL?
I'm not sure I have the answer other than Tepper may want to stick with the idea of pairing Bryce Young with a young, offensive-minded coach that can be the head man for the next twenty years or so.
When addressing the media following the firing of Frank Reich, Tepper even mentioned he would like to have a coach stick around for that long and in his other line of work, that's what he's accustomed to.
"In other aspects of my life we have people for 20, 30 years that work for me. Nobody ever leaves me...I do have patience. My reputation away from this game is one for extreme patience. There's no reason why that doesn't come here too, it does. Now, that patience comes with good performance and things that you want to see - progress being made in different aspects. As I said, I would like to have somebody here for 20, 30 years. I'd like to have somebody that would say eulogy at my funeral in 30 years. Maybe it's 40 years, I hope."
Considering Belichick is set to turn 72 years young in April, you'd have to think he would like to retire at some point in the near future. I understand this is the greatest coach of all-time, but this roster isn't ready to win now and with that being the case, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to make a serious push for him and then have to redo the process over again in a handful of years.
Jim Harbaugh just turned 60 in December, so you would think he wants to stick around coaching for a little while longer and try to add a Super Bowl trophy to his already impressive coaching resume.
Both Belichick and Harbaugh have interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons for their head coaching job as rival owner Arthur Blank appears to be all-in on making a splash hire.
Even if Tepper's initial gut feeling is that he'll go with a younger coach over Harbaugh or Belichick, it still makes all the sense in the world to sit down with each of them and have a conversation. Having two distinguished coaches of this caliber available for hire in this same cycle is unique. Not having them in for an interview, or even a virtual one for that matter, would be crazy.
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