Ravens' John Harbaugh Moves Up NFL Longevity Ranks After Bill Belichick Departure
Death, taxes, John Harbaugh on the Baltimore Ravens' sidelines.
A busy, if not deadly, week among the NFL head coaching ranks has left eight teams - a quarter of the league's membership - without a boss. For the 16th consecutive season, the Ravens remain stoic in the chaos, fully and understandably content with head coach Harbaugh's leadership.
The latest departure from the headset brotherhood has left a profound emotional impact on the rest of the league: on Thursday, the New England Patriots announced that Bill Belichick would not make it to a quarter-century at the helm, as the two sides have parted ways after his 24th season (and fifth sans Tom Brady) ended with only four wins on their respective ledgers.
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Belichick's departure affords Harbaugh another landmark of longevity: with his Patriots hoodie hung up for the final time, Harbaugh now holds the NFL's second-longest active tenure for a head coach with his current outfit. Perhaps ironically, Harbaugh trails only AFC North rival Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, who has him beat out by a single year.
Baltimore as a whole has been blessed with little turnover in the head coach's slot: since the team's official formation in 1996, only three men have donned the franchise's top headset. The late Ted Marchibroda oversaw the first three years of Charm City football before giving way to Brian Billick, whose nine-season term included a championship run after the 2000 campaign.
Harbaugh has kept that tradition of excellence alive, winning 160 games and embarking on a Super Bowl trek of his own in 2012-13. As it stands, Harbaugh is the fourth-winningest head coach in NFL history among men who spent their entire tenures with a single team, behind only Tom Landry (250, Dallas), Chuck Noll (193, Pittsburgh), and Tomlin (173).
If any team in the AFC came close to solving Belichick's dominant two-plus decade run in Foxborough, it was Harbaugh's Ravens. Though he posted a 5-7 record against Belichick and Co., all but one of the losses came by one possession.
Baltimore also earned two postseason wins against Belichick's groups, including a 28-13 triumph in the 2012-13 AFC title game en route to his aforementioned Super Bowl win. Harbaugh is the only coach to take multiple playoff games from Belichick during his time at the Foxborough helm.
