ChiefsPlanet - Chiefs The Chiefs, and a few others, whiffed on Harbaughs

Typical Pioli. A day late, and a dollar short.

NEW ORLEANS -- Long before the country focused in on the Harbaugh brothers, other teams did.

The first team to interview Jim Harbaugh for an NFL head-coaching job was none other than the New York Jets. Four years ago, in an airport in Arizona, Jets owner Woody Johnson and three of his lieutenants spent hours meeting and discussing New York's head-coaching job with Harbaugh, according to sources.

They were the first ones to identify and interview Harbaugh for an NFL job. The Jets thought Harbaugh was dynamic, energetic -- but not quite ready. So they went with Rex Ryan instead.

The Detroit Lions also contacted Harbaugh to gauge his interest in returning to Michigan, where he attended college, sources said. But the conversations with the Lions never advanced far before Detroit offered its job to Jim Schwartz and Harbaugh signed a contract extension with Stanford.

And then, the day after Harbaugh signed his extension, the Kansas City Chiefs weighed in, seeing if the Stanford coach would be interested in leaving, sources said. The irony was that Harbaugh's wife, Sarah, is from Kansas City. Had the Chiefs called 48 hours earlier, before Harbaugh gave his word and signature to Stanford on an extension, he might have been enticed. But the Chiefs were a little late, a delay-of-game penalty that would haunt them. Harbaugh stayed at Stanford, and Kansas City hired Todd Haley.

Any of those three teams -- the Jets, Lions or Chiefs -- could have hired Harbaugh ahead of his time, before he was ripe. They correctly identified him, just didn't act in timely enough fashion. The 49ers did, luring Harbaugh to San Francisco before the Dolphins could bring him to Miami.

And if those moves leave those fan bases shaking their heads, think of what's happening at Boston College and UCLA. Back in January 2007, Boston College narrowed down its head-coaching candidates and, in the end, opted to hire Jeff Jagodzinski over Eagles special teams coach John Harbaugh.

But John Harbaugh had another opportunity as well. He was a finalist for the UCLA job in December 2007. But as much as UCLA liked Harbaugh, it liked Rick Neuheisel even more and hired him instead.

Before they became the celebrated coaches they are today, just shy of Super Bowl XLVII, the Harbaugh brothers first were repeatedly rejected. How much would NFL teams and colleges like a mulligan on those decisions today?

Not to single out the Jets, but which NFL franchise has been more crossed than theirs? They once wanted but missed out on drafting Southern Mississippi quarterback Brett Favre, once watched Peyton Manning return to Tennessee for his senior season when they had the No. 1 pick, and once witnessed Bill Belichick resign as head coach of their organization as he was attending the news conference that was supposed to announce his hire. Now, Harbaugh can be added to the list of Jets whiffs.

And there's a lesson in there for all these teams and colleges that embark on coaching interviews at the end of each of their seasons. Sometimes, the men who are hired are not as capable as the ones who are bypassed. Sometimes, teams believe they are making the right choice, but the only way it can be verified is through time. And sometimes, teams make as many mistakes as the head coaches who lost their jobs.

Like drafting players, hiring coaches is a crapshoot. Sometimes, teams nail it, and other times they flub it. The Jets, Lions and Chiefs made questionable decisions, as did Boston College and UCLA. The 49ers and Ravens, who square off Sunday in Super Bowl XLVII, did not.

Who made better moves than them? Nobody.

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