NFL insiders battle over what led to John Harbaugh’s Ravens firing

What really was behind the Ravens’ firing of John Harbaugh depends on which NFL insider you believe. 

Hours after the Super Bowl-winning coach’s canning after 18 seasons in Baltimore, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported the move was “simply [because] Harbaugh lost the locker room” in one of the first of many attempts to explain what led to Harbaugh’s demise.

The Ravens disappointed, finishing 8-9 and missing the postseason after a heartbreaking loss to the Steelers in Week 18. But, Rapoport added, the firing was about more than just their play on the field. 

“At the end, players just simply had doubts about whether or not they wanted to play for him as their head coach,” Rapoport continued. “The opinions of players was valued here, it was listened to, it went to all levels and it’s not just Lamar Jackson. Now it started, it sounded like to me, with Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson not being on the same page. It continued throughout the locker room, maybe not 100 percent, but more than enough for the Baltimore Ravens to say among the reasons to move on, this was a big one.”

Over at ESPN, Ravens insider Jamison Hensley suggested that Baltimore players no longer had faith in Harbaugh without saying so explicitly. 

“There was a feeling by some within the organization that Harbaugh had run his course with Jackson and this core group of players,” Hensley wrote, adding that one player told him he was “surprised but not shocked” at the move. 

Hensley’s ESPN NFL colleague, insider Adam Schefter, appeared to disagree. 

During an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Wednesday, Schefter spun a different narrative, outright disputing Rapoport’s claim that Harbaugh had lost the locker room.

“I don’t think that information right there could be any less true,” Schefter said regarding Rapoport’s report. “The players were coming to his office, crying, hugging him, sending him goodbyes, calling him one by one. If they felt that way, why are Mark Andrews, Zay Flowers and Isaiah Likely and all these players coming in, crying, hugging him, giving him these long, warm goodbyes? I’m not buying it.

“… Sometimes, nobody does anything wrong, you go on for 18 years, and it’s time for everybody to go a different direction,” he added. “It’s OK. Nobody has to do something wrong. There doesn’t have to be some salacious reason. There doesn’t have to be some fight or something like that. Sometimes, it could just be [that] they fell short the past few years.”

The Athletic’s Ravens reporter Jeff Zrebiec echoed a similar sentiment to Rapoport, writing that it “felt like things had gone stale” around the team and that “there was more locker grumbling about Harbaugh and his staff than there had been in past seasons.” 

According to fellow Athletic reporter, Dianna Russini, the future of the coaching staff under Harbaugh was a big reason the franchise decided to move on. 

“A key pressure point in the John Harbaugh dismissal, according to those familiar with today’s discussions, was his refusal to entertain any conversations about potentially moving on from offensive coordinator Todd Monken,” Russini reported on X.