Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh has a job to do, and that’s to pick the best players available that feed the needs of his team in the NFL draft. If that means picking players from his brother’s arch-rival, so be it. But don’t think for one minute that means there’s any change in allegiances there.
Harbaugh not only picked running back J.K. Dobbins in the second round, he doubled down and got Buckeye linebacker Malik Harrison at the back-end of the fourth. When asked about picking Ohio State players and potentially rocking the boat with arch-rival Michigan’s head coach, and brother Jim, the elder Harbaugh said it doesn’t factor in much.
“Yeah, you really don’t think about that too much really with the draft,” Harbaugh said. “Jim (Harbaugh) helps me with those guys at Ohio State anyway because he knows them so well playing against them. I guess it’ll make for good bets in the season next year when those games come up. We’ll have some good rivalry games.”
Harbaugh was very clear though that he won’t come over to the perceived dark side just because he’s drafted two Buckeyes this year.
“I promise you I won’t be wearing any Ohio State gear no matter what,” said Harbaugh. Hey, Ohio State’s got a great program. Those guys are great players, they’ve had tons of success.”
You can catch the interview shared by Bucknuts Patrick Murphy below.
I know this, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when the Harbaugh brothers discussed some of the OSU players on the board. That had to be a dose of humble pie.
