Welcome to the Andy Staples show.

We got a fascinating story to talk about today, and that is the Jim Harbaugh story.

Nick Baumgartner from The Athletic joins me.

And right now, Jim Harbaugh, we think, is on, you know, potentially has a decision to make.

We don't know because we don't know what the Las Vegas Raiders are thinking right now.

But one year after he took a pay cut that sliced his salary in half, Jim Harbaugh maybe headed to the NFL,

or he may be resigning with Michigan,

maybe back at what he was making before.

And Nick, I just, we were talking before we started recording.

Like Harbaugh fascinates me completely

because he doesn't act like other coaches would in these situations.

He doesn't negotiate like they do. Like, I wouldn't be shocked if he went to the NFL and I wouldn't be shocked if he stayed at Michigan. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's 100% what it is. I mean, it's the same for, it's the same as it was, you know, in some ways like seven years ago when he did this. I mean, you remember, like the whole, when he san francisco and people didn't know what he was going to do and know everybody got that wrong it was like

no because you know he works with agents in these like weird ways where he doesn't really have one like

right now he's working with he is actually working with people that are you know negotiating for him which

is different than it's been in the past but it's like that speaks to sort of the unpredictability and kind of like, you just never know with him, like, where the wind's going to blow. I mean, it's like, I can remember Andy when they hired him. And like the month, it took a month. The coaching search was a month. It was like 28 days. And we didn't really write it at the time. And it kind of came out later. But like Jim Hackett, the guy who hired him was like up until like the last day, like hours. Like are you going to sign this? I mean hours. People don't know that. Like at the time. And if that had come out at the time, like the panic that was going on like because that's just how he is. And I think Or Daniel understands that and they're trying to give him room, you know, but like, how much room do you want to give him? I mean, at some point, this has got to be what, you know, you've got to make a decision and you go forward. So we'll see where they, we'll see where it happens, I guess. Well, I'm saying, and Mark Davis has some saying this too. I would imagine that they would have to offer the job and then Harbaugh would have to accept.

But it is interesting because, you know, we talked all year about, you know, Urban Meyer going to the NFL and then flaming out and getting fired.

Jim Harbaugh is the one college coach who it does not qualify in those discussions of could he succeed in the NFL because we've already seen him succeed in the NFL.

Right.

But now, my question is this.

So we have seen it.

And it's something that I think, and I said this to somebody earlier today, I think a lot of teams over the last seven years I've heard get in love with the idea or, you know, in like with the idea of hiring Jim Harbaugh. And then they get to like the action phase and they're like, no, we're not doing that because like of all the things that people remember from that time he had in San Francisco and how much he clashed with Balke and Jed York and all these people that have gone on to,

you know,

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