What the brothers have said about each other

When the Baltimore Ravens take on the Los Angeles Chargers on “Monday Night Football” on Nov. 25, it will be a Harbaugh family affair that hasn’t happened in over a decade.

John Harbaugh, the longtime head coach of the Ravens, will coach against his younger brother, Jim Harbaugh, who was named head coach of the Chargers in January.

The last time the two brothers faced off, it couldn’t have been on a bigger stage. John Harbaugh beat his brother, who was coaching the San Francisco 49ers at the time, in the 2013 Super Bowl for his first and only championship.

After Jim Harbaugh’s tenure with the 49ers ended in 2014, he became the head coach of his alma mater, the Michigan Wolverines, winning a national championship in January to end his run with the team in the midst of a recruitment violation examination from the NCAA.

The Harbaugh brothers’ match lands on the 63rd wedding anniversary of their parents, Jack and Jackie Harbaugh, who Athletic noted in an August story about the coaches.

Here’s what the couple have said about each other.

“Who’s better off than us?”

In an interview with The athletic released in August, the Harbaughs discussed their brotherly dynamic as kids, often being on the same teams for organized sports.

“No one could ever ask for a better brother in every way,” Jim Harbaugh, 60, said of John Harbaugh, who is 62. “I sometimes think if he was a biblical character, what would he be? He would be up there with some of the greats in my mind.”

The brothers also revealed stories from their childhood in an interview posted by Chargers in March, including a notable family word.

One day when Jim Harbaugh was in first grade and John Harbaugh was in third grade in Iowa City, Iowa, their father, a longtime coach, was responsible for bringing them to school in their family car.

The Harbaugh brothers came outside to find no cars in the driveway, and their father instead assigned the boys to go to school while they worked on basketball drills, dribbling 100 times with their right hand and 100 times with their left.

“Who’s better off than us?” Jack Harbaugh asked his kids, Jim recalled.

“NO!” John and Jim Harbaugh yelled back, according to Jim.

The catchphrase is now a common locker room saying for both brothers.

In a video interview posted by the Ravens in March, the two brothers sat next to their father Jack Harbaugh to discuss family debates.

“If John and Jim were both on your father’s staff, who would he care about more?” asked the interviewer.

“Jim,” John Harbaugh said, looking down at his brother.

“Me,” Jim Harbaugh said as the three burst out laughing.

“Are they real?” the interviewer asked Harbaugh’s father.

“Yes!” he replied with a big thumbs up.

Later, interviewer Jim Harbaugh asked, “Is there anything John did that to this day you still take heat for?”

“I pretty much took the heat for everything,” Jim Harbaugh jokingly replied.

A tough meeting on the field after John Harbaugh’s Super Bowl victory over his brother

Immediately after winning the Super Bowl in New Orleans with the Ravens in 2013, John Harbaugh walked to the middle of the field to meet the brother he had just defeated.

“I realized I had to walk across the field and shake the other coach’s hand, but it was my brother,” John Harbaugh said at his induction into the Cradle of Coaches at Miami University the following year. “It’s a little different, it’s a little tougher.”

The two exchanged hands when John Harbaugh tried to go in for a hug.

“There will be no hugs,” Jim Harbaugh declared during the exchange, according to his brother.

A decade later, Jim Harbaugh still thinks about the game and what could have been different.

“There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that game,” Jim Harbaugh said Associated Press in February, adding: “My brother, my best friend, I love him, I’m proud of him. He deserved it and he deserved it and his team did.”

John’s support for his brother’s college championship

During Michigan’s matchup against the Washington Huskies in the 2024 college football national championship game, John Harbaugh watched from the sidelines as his brother won.

In the middle of the game, John Harbaugh walked up to Jim Harbaugh on the sidelines and visibly surprised his younger brother. The two hugged and exchanged words before Jim Harbaugh came back for the most important win of his career.

After the victory, the brothers were seen embracing in a hug on the field.

“You did it, you did it,” John Harbaugh repeatedly told Jim Harbaugh as he hugged him.

After Jim Harbaugh was named the Chargers’ new head coach on Jan. 24, John Harbaugh responded to a press conference next day.

“My thoughts are we’ll play them next year. So we’re looking forward to it all,” the Ravens coach said.

“I’m just very happy for him, proud of him, excited for him, excited for his family,” John Harbaugh continued, later adding, “I will say this: The Chargers just got a great coach.”

On a press conference in a preview of the Nov. 25 “Monday Night Football” game, he called his brother “one of the best coaches of his generation. Even if he wasn’t my brother, I’d say the same thing.”

On his own press conference prior to the game, Jim Harbaugh tried to put the focus on the players rather than on him and his brother, saying, “I’m sure he’s not going to make it about him. I’m not going to make it about him. me.”