Why Ravens owner was right to fire John Harbaugh

Adam Schultz

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Why Ravens owner was right to fire John Harbaugh image

The Baltimore Ravens made perhaps the biggest move of the offseason when they fired head coach John Harbaugh after 18 years.

With the Ravens missing the playoffs, owner Steve Bisciotti decided to part ways with Harbaugh to seek a fresh start for his organization.

With the Ravens struggling in the postseason under Harbaugh, and the reported rifts with Lamar Jackson, they were seen as potential reasons the franchise moved on.

And speaking to the media, Bisciotti detailed exactly why Harbaugh was let go.

“The reasons, and unfortunately most of these can't get traced back to John necessarily, but factually, we led the league in giving up big leads in the fourth quarter,” Bisciotti said. “It's not something that winning organizations do. We have underperformed based on our seeding in the playoffs. Very disappointing.

"A lot of our great players involved, making mistakes that they don't make during the regular season very often. In the last 10 years we've won the third most games in the NFL, yet people were saying we were underachievers, we were, and we had to own that.”

More: Could Kliff Kingsbury be the right Ravens hire for Lamar Jackson?

Ravens right to move on from Harbaugh

Reading between the lines here, the main reason for Harbaugh's firing was a lack of success.

When you have a quarterback like Lamar Jackson and an offense that has good weapons, you can't be missing the playoffs, and when you get there, you have to go deep into the tournament.

Baltimore didn't.

Also, after 18 years, a fresh voice was needed. The message likely got stale, and now the Ravens will have to find Harbaugh's replacement.

All of the reasons Bisciotti gave were valid, and you will be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks otherwise.

There's no doubting Baltimore underachieved over the past five or so years, and Harbaugh has paid the price for that.

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News Correspondent