I know there are other Harbaugh and coaching threads, but I wanted to put all my thoughts out there so they don't get lost in a thread.
Harbaugh is a popular choice for several reasons. He is clearly a good leader. Former NFL QB, nicknamed Captain Comeback for the way he put his teams on his back to comeback from a deficit. He led on the field. He has led off the field. 44-19 at the NFL level. 90-45 in college. Took a team to the Superbowl. Took Michigan to the national playoff this year. 0 losing seasons since his first 2 at Stanford in a rebuild. Only one .500 season, his last in the NFL. He's a winner. No doubt about it.
That being said, the goal shouldn't be to win a bunch of games. The goal is to build a team that can perennially compete for and win championships. While Harbaugh has gotten there, he's never gotten over the hump. Lost the Superbowl. Lost now what is 5 straight bowl games. Lost to Ohio State repeatedly, until the year. But to be honest, I don't even care about his big game performance. I care about the reason for the failure in big games. I care about the reason for not being able to beat Ohio State. And the reason he's not been able to get over the hump, IMO, is the QB position.
This is a QB driven league. Other than a couple instances, we've seen teams that consistently are playoff teams are the ones with elite, HOF level QB play. Green Bay, NE with Brady, TB went from 7 wins to SB with Brady, KC has now been 1-2 seed three straight years, Saints were there consistently with Brees, Steelers before Ben got fat. The Bears finally have a QB with potentially this level of QB play. And ironically enough, the former QB (Harbaugh) can't seem to figure out the QB position. Sure he got some good years out of Kaepernick in SF, and took him to the Superbowl. But the passing offenses in SF? 29th, 23rd, 30th and 30th in Harbaugh's 4 seasons. His history at Michigan isn't much better. His teams are typically in the 60s in passing offense out of 111 FBS teams. He hasn't developed a single QB at Michigan despite literally handpicking all of them in the last 5-6 years. This is a huge red flag to me.
I'm sure Harbaugh can come into Chicago and rebuild things and in a couple years will be winning 10 games consistently. Maybe he even wins a ring. But as crazy as it sounds, I dont want to win 10 games consistently and maybe get a ring. I want sustained success. I want no losing seasons in 18 years like the Steelers. I want when the Bears score 20 points everyone is wondering if defenses have figured out their offense, then when you look at the end of the season they are top 3 in scoring and total offense like the Cowboys and Chiefs. I want the Packers only ammo against Bears fans to be "well you only got 1 ring out of 8 NFC championship games". And the ONLY way to do that with the current Bears roster is on the arm of Justin Fields. He's been a top 2 QB for several years. He's a 5 star recruit. He was a top 2 talent in this draft, despite falling to 11. He has the ability to be as good as the elite QBs in the league who's teams you pencil in the playoffs in August. Harbaugh can certainly win games, but he hasn't shown he has the ability to develop a QB to that level or the longevity to see it through. I don't see the upside in a guy who's track record is basically to have the same amount of success as Lovie Smith. Lovie won 9-10 games consistently enough. He led the team to a SB loss.
And to be completely honest, the love for Harbaugh just doesn't sit right with me. Bears fans are notorious for reminiscing about the "good ol days". 1985 Bears were magical. We talk fondly about legendary Bears players. And most Bears fans would like nothing more than 1 of our "heroes" to come in and lead the Bears back to the promised land. Well, reality check.....there aren't many good old days that most Bears fans remember. And Harbaugh certainly was not part of any of those with his 2 winning seasons out of 6 as Bears QB, and a grand total of ZERO playoff wins (he played terrible in the 1 playoff game, FWIW). I've seen people on Twitter suggest a staff including Harbaugh, Kreutz, Urlacher, Mike Brown, etc. For what? What have any of them proven as coaches? What did any of them do for the franchise as players as far as adding hardware to the trophy case? The Bears have never had a 4000 yard passer. They're scoring 18 per game when elite teams are consistently putting up 30. They are spending almost twice as much on defense in an offensive league. They have a 1-man analytics department. They have an accountant overseeing football operations. Moves like Harbaugh, who wins on defense and running the ball, reeks of more of the same. The Bears (and their fans) need to get out of the past and embrace the current.
