No stopping the Harbaugh train

John Harbaugh is the friendly one, more easy-going and less contentious. Jim Harbaugh is the edgy one, fiery and occasionally confrontational.
That’ll be part of the Super Bowl narrative day after day after day, as Harbaugh’s Ravens prepare to meet Harbaugh’s 49ers. Both have brilliant records, and whoever wins will be anointed the NFL’s next great head coach.
I don’t need to see the game to say Jim Harbaugh is the heir to Bill Belichick’s throne. In his two NFL seasons, he has taken San Francisco to two NFC championship games and one Super Bowl. That’s incredible, although so is John Harbaugh’s five playoff appearances in five seasons with Baltimore.
The reason Jim Harbaugh is ready to displace Belichick as the league’s most-driven coach is because he did what only supremely confident leaders do. He made a tough choice, even a ruthless choice, and didn’t worry about the ramifications.
In early November, he inserted second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick for Alex Smith, who suffered a concussion. And when Smith got healthy, Harbaugh didn’t leap into the ol’ coaching safety net and go back to the incumbent. He stuck with Kaepernick because of his big-play ability, his upside as a runner, and his cannon arm.
It’s easy now to say it wasn’t a difficult decision, but if you say it, you’re lying. Before he was benched for good, Smith completed 25 of his last 27 passes, with four touchdowns and no interceptions. When he got injured, the 49ers were 6-2 and already a Super Bowl favorite.
It’s the same move Belichick made a decade earlier, permanently replacing the injured Drew Bledsoe with an unheralded second-year quarterback named Tom Brady. The best decisions always look easier in retrospect. But the best coaches aren’t afraid to make the tough ones, and they also recognize loyalty is a wasted trait in the NFL.
Jim Harbaugh isn’t beholden to loyalty. Ask Michigan fans, many of whom thought it was perfect and natural for him to return to his alma mater after Rich Rodriguez’s firing. Would he have won in Ann Arbor? Almost assuredly. So would John Harbaugh, also a favorite of many at Michigan.
With different timing, maybe Jim Harbaugh would’ve spun the Big Ten into a frenzy. But he was determined to coach in the NFL, a goal he never hid, and it was going to happen quickly. I was one who questioned whether he had the temperament to handle the pros. Oops. The Harbaughs play hard ball, and nobody plays it better than the edgy one.
Bob.wojnowski@detnews.com