But the Harbaughs already strain credulity - individually and as possible Super Bowl opponents.
Jim Harbaugh is bucking three trends just to be coaching San Francisco in the NFC championship game. He is a first-year head coach who was apparently not hampered in any way by the NFL lockout. He jumped to the NFL from the college level, a move that results in far more pratfalls than successes. And he was a longtime NFL quarterback, which is a better launching pad for a career in broadcasting than coaching.
John Harbaugh may have taken an even more improbable road to his second AFC title game as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. Twenty-five years ago, he was planning to attend law school rather than follow his father, Jack, into the family business. A last-minute change of heart, and one disappointed mother, led Harbaugh on his current path - which took a long, long detour in Philadelphia.
That detour started in 1998, when Ray Rhodes hired John Harbaugh to coach the Eagles special teams. The special teams had been awful largely because the Eagles were awful. That season was a disaster, with Rhodes coaching under the near-certain knowledge that he would be fired. The dynamic led to a lot of tension, a lot of paranoia, and very little joy.
In that atmosphere, Harbaugh stood out. Maybe it was because we were about the same age, or maybe it was just that Harbaugh was and is arguably the nicest coach I've ever covered, but this beat writer jumped at the chance to do a long feature on the relatively unknown Harbaugh.
