Ryan Leaf wanted an ally.
The No. 2 choose within the 1998 NFL Draft was coming off a disastrous rookie season for the San Diego Chargers. Two touchdowns to fifteen interceptions in 10 video games. Eight fumbles and 22 sacks.
The younger quarterback accomplished 45.3 p.c of his passes and was benched a number of occasions. He alienated teammates and verbally accosted a reporter within the locker room. He lately described himself as appearing “poorly … as knowledgeable.”
The Chargers fired head coach Kevin Gilbride in October and completed the season 5-11. Leaf characterised the “mentality” of most within the group at the moment as, “If (Leaf) will get hit by a automotive on the way in which to work at this time, we’d be OK.”
That offseason, he was determined for somebody who considered him in a different way, who centered on his potential and never his transgressions.
That somebody turned Jim Harbaugh.
“All people else was similar to, ‘Screw this child. I don’t need something to do with him,’” Leaf lately instructed The Athletic. “(Harbaugh) wasn’t that man, ever. He was all the time there to attempt to assist.”
In two seasons enjoying quarterback for the Chargers, Harbaugh went 6-11 as a starter, throwing extra interceptions than touchdowns. San Diego went 1-15 in 2000. Harbaugh’s last NFL move try got here in a Week 11 loss to the Miami Dolphins at Qualcomm Stadium.
Up till three weeks in the past, this two-year stretch of Harbaugh’s legendary soccer life was a relative afterthought. However after Harbaugh was launched as Los Angeles Chargers head coach on Feb. 1 at SoFi Stadium, this unceremonious finish to a 14-year enjoying profession now has revitalized that means.
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To begin the information convention, the Chargers performed a hype video on two screens sandwiching either side of the rostrum. Included have been a number of highlights of Harbaugh in a Chargers uniform. He sat within the entrance row, the giddy emotion evident on his face, smiling from ear to ear as reflections of the highlights danced on his glasses.
“All of those previous reminiscences are flooding again,” Harbaugh mentioned after taking the stage moments later.
His connection to the crew, the lighting bolt emblem, Southern California, the Spanos household — all of it stemmed from these two seasons. Within the document books, the stint exists as a 9-24 document. However within the tales from the individuals who lived it, these two years have been a lot extra — the burgeoning saplings of Harbaugh’s teaching fashion, raucous golf cart races at coaching camp, passion-fueled fights with teammates and an unwavering authenticity that resonates with teammates and coaches to today.
“He beats to his personal drum,” mentioned former Chargers operating again Terrell Fletcher, “and he likes the music he performs.”
Jim Harbaugh’s two seasons with the Chargers have been a relative footnote to a stable NFL enjoying profession till he was employed as their new head coach. (Keith Birmingham / MediaNews Group / Pasadena Star-Information through Getty Photos)
The Chargers employed Mike Riley as their new head coach after the 1998 season. Riley knew he wanted a veteran presence within the quarterbacks room each as an assist and a contingency plan for Leaf. So on March 22, 1999, the Chargers traded a fifth-round choose to the Baltimore Ravens for Harbaugh, then 35 years previous.
“What a terrific selection that was,” Riley mentioned.
Harbaugh was a first-round choose of the Chicago Bears in 1987. In 1995, “Captain Comeback” led the Indianapolis Colts to the AFC Championship Recreation, beating the Chargers on his approach there and making the Professional Bowl after the season. He had thrown for greater than 22,000 yards by the point he joined San Diego
Riley was sitting in his workplace on the Chargers facility one offseason day when he glanced out the window to see rookies on the sphere going by means of a exercise with the energy and conditioning employees, together with lifting and carrying logs.
“You know the way the burden coaches are,” Riley mentioned with a chuckle.
As Riley appeared onto the sphere, one participant caught his eye, a lone veteran within the group of newbies.
“That’s simply Jim,” Riley mentioned. “Jim wasn’t regular.”
That is what Harbaugh delivered to the Chargers when he arrived in San Diego within the spring of 1999: “He had an consciousness of who he was on a crew and what that will imply to the others,” Riley mentioned.
The plan was for Harbaugh to again up Leaf. The earlier yr, the one different quarterback on the roster had been Craig Whelihan, a 27-year-old who was a sixth-round choose in 1995 and had seven profession begins — all losses — to his title.
“We needed to get a man that will be not solely a mentor sort however could be a viable man if one thing occurred,” Riley mentioned.
Minutes into the opening follow of coaching camp, Leaf tore the labrum in his throwing shoulder. The contingency turned actuality. Harbaugh was the Chargers’ beginning quarterback.
He debuted for the Chargers on Sept. 19, 1999 — in Week 2, the crew had a bye on opening weekend — throwing for 159 yards and two touchdowns in a 34-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. He suffered an elbow harm within the first quarter of the third recreation of the season in opposition to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs. Veteran Erik Kramer, signed on the eve of coaching camp after being minimize by the Bears, changed Harbaugh and helped the Chargers overcome a 14-point deficit to win 21-14.
Kramer began the following two video games, wins over the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks (regardless of 4 interceptions from Kramer), whereas Harbaugh nursed the elbow and two cracked ribs. The Chargers have been 4-1, with a protection led by linebacker Junior Seau and security Rodney Harrison rising as one of many higher models within the league.
“We didn’t have a very good protection,” mentioned Fletcher. “We had a terrific protection.”
Harbaugh suited up in opposition to the Inexperienced Bay Packers in Week 7, however Kramer received a 3rd consecutive begin. He threw three interceptions in three quarters and was benched in favor of Harbaugh, who threw three picks of his personal within the fourth. The Chargers misplaced, 31-3.
On the fourth play of a 34-0 loss to the Chiefs the next week, Kramer threw his tenth interception of the season. He fumbled on the following offensive sequence, the ultimate snap of his NFL profession. Harbaugh entered and went on to start out the final 9 video games of the season. Kramer was pressured to medically retire midseason due to a neck harm. He recalled waking up in the midst of the night time unable to maneuver within the days after the Kansas Metropolis recreation.
After changing an injured Erik Kramer throughout a 34-0 loss to the Chiefs, Jim Harbaugh began the ultimate 9 video games of the 1999 season. (Dave Kaup / AFP through Getty Photos)
The Chargers misplaced six straight video games to fall to 4-7. After Week 2, San Diego failed to attain greater than 21 factors in 9 straight video games. Frustrations mounted amongst members of a protection that will end the 1999 season permitting the fewest yards per play within the league.
“We have been a bit overmatched offensively,” Kramer mentioned. “We didn’t have fairly the expertise.”
Tensions boiled over in Week 10 throughout a 28-9 loss on the Oakland Raiders, the fifth of six consecutive defeats. And Harbaugh was on the middle of the flare-up.
The Chargers punted on all 5 of their first-half possessions to open the sport, and security Mike Dumas was ready on the sideline to greet the offense after every failed drive.
“At first it was sort of encouraging. ‘Come on, offense. Let’s get it going,’” offensive deal with Vaughn Parker mentioned. “However at a sure time limit, you’ve heard it, and it’s like, ‘We get it. We all know we’re struggling. Give us a break.’”
The Chargers trailed 21-3 within the fourth quarter when Harbaugh threw an incompletion on a fourth-and-10.
“Mike mentioned one thing,” Riley recalled. “Jim took offense to it.”
Dumas and Harbaugh received right into a jawing match on the sideline. Tv cameras picked up the spat.
“It’s actually embarrassing us as a crew,” Seau mentioned on the time. “We don’t wish to see any of our gamers and members of the family having a dialog like that in entrance of hundreds of thousands of individuals. It doesn’t must be like that. We don’t want to reveal our soiled laundry on the market on the road.”
Offensive gamers, although, noticed Harbaugh going to bat for them.
“You respect that, particularly as an offensive line,” Parker mentioned. “You continue to needed to provide a terrific effort for somebody who was in it such as you have been.”
The Chargers misplaced, 28-9. Riley mentioned he was jogging 20 yards behind Harbaugh and Dumas, who have been persevering with to yell at one another as they made their approach throughout the sphere from the customer’s bench to the Oakland Coliseum locker rooms after the sport.
“They held themselves off till they received beneath the stadium and the seats earlier than they really went at it,” Riley mentioned.
Fletcher identified that the fracas was a “soccer battle, not an actual proper.” However, he concedes, it’s not typically the beginning quarterback is grabbing facemasks or throwing uppercuts. “That’s one factor that makes it distinctive,” Fletcher mentioned, “he caught up for himself.”
“Jim was not going to again all the way down to something,” Riley mentioned. “That’s sort of his M.O. He’s prepared for the battle, no matter it’s.”
Harbaugh threw for 677 yards over the following two video games. Three weeks after the Oakland loss, the Chargers ended their skid with a 23-10 win over the Cleveland Browns, with Harbaugh finishing a season-high 69.6 p.c of his passes.
“He’s a mad-man competitor,” Parker mentioned.
The Chargers received 4 of their last 5 video games. The one loss got here in Week 15 to the Dolphins. On the ultimate drive, Harbaugh accomplished six passes to maneuver the offense into area purpose vary. Kicker John Carney missed from 36 yards. San Diego misplaced 12-9, ending one recreation again of Miami for the ultimate wild-card spot.
The Chargers held coaching camp at UC San Diego throughout the years Harbaugh performed for the crew, full with gamers sleeping in dorms and two-a-day practices. “Pads each occasions,” Fletcher mentioned.
The sector was far sufficient away from the dorms that the crew gave gamers golf carts to shuttle there and again. “They have been gasoline carts,” Parker mentioned. “You would pop the regulator (off) and simply make it a lot extra quick than they anticipated.” Parker remembers a “large straightaway” on the drive from the dorms to the sphere.
Compulsively aggressive individuals? Uncapped golf carts? Enormous straightaway? Exhausted gamers craving a reprieve from the canine days of camp?
“We raced the golf carts,” Fletcher confirmed. And who was the ringleader? Fletcher pauses for a second when requested. “It may need been Jim,” he says with fun.
Harbaugh, months away from his thirty seventh birthday, was pushing the carts to the restrict.
“We had every kind of issues — wrecks and guys falling off,” Fletcher mentioned. “You’d have 4 individuals within the cart, two individuals on the again, the cart’s scratching the bottom virtually as a result of it’s virtually a ton of weight on the carts.”
“Everybody was simply ripping,” Parker mentioned.
When teammates suppose again to 2000, these are the front-of-mind moments. Harbaugh’s levity was among the many few positives in a horrific season when the Chargers didn’t win a recreation till after Thanksgiving.
Leaf had rehabbed from shoulder surgical procedure and entered coaching camp in a contest with Harbaugh for the beginning job. He accomplished his first 9 move makes an attempt in a preseason win over the Atlanta Falcons on Aug. 18, ending the primary half with 167 yards and a landing.
Not lengthy after, he claimed the beginning job. And after the choice was made, Leaf mentioned, Harbaugh was “accepting” and “simply nurturing.”
“He abruptly turned the mentor,” Leaf mentioned. “He turned the coach in that quarterback room.”
The Chargers misplaced the primary two video games of the season by 4 mixed factors, however Leaf threw 5 picks and misplaced a fumble and was benched for a Week 3 recreation in opposition to the Chiefs in favor of Moses Moreno. Moreno suffered a throwing-shoulder harm within the third quarter of an eventual 42-10 loss to the Chiefs.
Harbaugh noticed his first motion of the season the following recreation in opposition to Seattle after Leaf fumbled and threw an interception within the first half. Harbaugh began the following 5 video games, however Leaf received the nod for the ultimate six, together with a Week 13 win over the Chiefs, the Chargers’ lone victory of the season.
“It challenged the whole lot (Harbaugh) believes in,” then-quarterbacks coach Mike Johnson mentioned of the 2000 season. “It challenged the way in which he believes in how it is best to deal with coaches, how it is best to deal with gamers, the whole lot. Jim Harbaugh has most likely by no means gone 1-15 in something.”
“A yr that’s etched in my reminiscence,” Parker mentioned.
Amid the dropping, although, Harbaugh was nonetheless making the kind of connections that will come to outline him as a coach.
Regardless of the on-field struggles, Jim Harbaugh was planting the seeds of what would make him a profitable NFL and faculty head coach. (Stephen Dunn / Getty Photos)
Leaf appeared ahead to Tuesdays. On the gamers’ off day, Leaf, Harbaugh and Moreno would play a spherical of golf. Every week, one quarterback rotated choosing the course. A part of the choice course of was figuring out a course that match one’s golf recreation. However Harbaugh was engaged on a deeper degree.
“He all the time discovered a extremely attention-grabbing solution to corroborate the golf course with sort of a message,” Leaf mentioned.
One Tuesday, Harbaugh picked the course at Coronado to construct a theme across the army.
“Every part he did had a coach feeling to it,” Leaf mentioned. “There was all the time a much bigger message that was being despatched in the whole lot he did, from the garments he’s sporting to the golf course he picked for us to play at so he may share tales alongside the way in which.”
Don’t be mistaken, although: Harbaugh was vicious throughout these rounds. Certain, he was teaching — on lately extra about life than soccer. He was additionally competing.
“They have been brutal,” Leaf mentioned. “He suffered no fools, and there was no quarter given. If it was a two-footer to win the opening, he was making you putt it out.”
Nonetheless, Harbaugh, in his approach, discovered a solution to join with a person who had misplaced his connection to nearly the whole lot else in his soccer life. Leaf mentioned he invited 4 members of the Chargers group to his marriage ceremony. One was Harbaugh.
“These two years … he ended up being my finest pal,” Leaf mentioned.
It was an unlikely pairing.
“Ryan Leaf and Jim Harbaugh have been oil and water,” Johnson mentioned. “Ryan was one thing that Jim couldn’t perceive. ‘How are you going to be this gifted and never be extra like me?’”
Johnson remembers one time within the quarterbacks room in 2000, Harbaugh turned to Leaf and mentioned, “Look, Ryan, you’re a poor excuse of a professional athlete. Do your job and ensure you care for the issues you’ll want to care for to ensure you’re a professional.”
“That’s who Jim was,” Johnson mentioned. “He was not going to will let you be something lower than what you have been purported to be.”
Harbaugh was supposed to educate. That a lot was apparent throughout his enjoying days. He sat on the sidelines with the Carolina Panthers in 2001 earlier than retiring and setting out on his subsequent profession the next season because the Raiders’ quarterbacks coach.
He received a Pioneer Soccer League title on the College of San Diego in 2005. 5 years later, he led Stanford to its first 11-win season in program historical past and an Orange Bowl title. He took the San Francisco 49ers to the Tremendous Bowl after the 2012 season, and a nine-year run on the College of Michigan, his alma mater, culminated in a nationwide championship in January.
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“You need to be on Jim’s aspect,” Riley mentioned. “There’s little doubt about it.”
Passionate, principled, pushed and authentically himself — that’s the legacy Harbaugh left as a Chargers participant.
Now he builds a brand new one.
(High illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; photographs: Brian Cleary and Tom Hauck / Getty Photos)