Jim Harbaugh is ready to supplant Bill Belichick as the new gold standard in coaching. Around the NFL everyone talks about the comparisons in what they’re doing to Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
Having won four of five Super Bowls in the past decade, the Patriots are a proven winner and have earned that kind of respect around the league.
Move over Bill, there’s a new kid in town named Harbaugh,......Jim Harbaugh.
All the moves Harbaugh has made to turn Mike Singletary’s mediocre 49ers into a championship-caliber team have all paid dividends, including the quarterback change of Alex Smith to Colin Kaepernick.
Remember, the 49ers were 6-2 going into the bye-week 9 and had a stranglehold on the NFC West.
At the time, ten weeks ago, people were just getting to think the once-beleaguered Smith was the future of the 49ers, but Harbaugh saw differently and made the unpopular, in-season switch.
A decision that now has the 49ers back in the saddle, ready to compete for the NFC Championship for the second time in two years, where, guaranteed, the rain or a fumbled punt won’t be a decisive factor of their fate.
It’ll be Kaepernick’s first championship game start. But he’ll handle it the way he’s handled everything, with poise and confidence that has brought him to the forefront as an elite quarterback in the NFL.
Harbaugh’s coaching style, including a willingness to give the media polysyllabic-worded paragraphs for answers instead of the defiant, insulant, one-word replies Belichick gives, is now the standard by which coaches and teams will try to emulate, or at the very least, use as a template for success.
Harbaugh is a breath of fresh air. From the up-beat, well-organized practices to the enthusiastic, pragmatic attitude he treats his players, he has injected life into the coaching profession as well as the 49ers’ organization.
Quoting Mary Tyler Moore’s Lou Grant, “He’s got spunk….I (we) like spunk.”
SF 49ers Examiner Christian Gin’s article
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