John Harbaugh: Jim Johnson was best defensive coach ever

Share

An awful lot of memories came flooding back to John Harbaugh when the Ravens team bus pulled into the NovaCare Complex parking lot Wednesday morning.

None of the memories were more poignant or more vivid or more meaningful than the memories involving Jim Johnson.

Harbaugh, now the Super Bowl-winning head coach of the Ravens, spent the 1999 through 2007 seasons on Andy Reid’s staff with Johnson. The first eight years, he coached special teams, and the final year, he got to work directly with Johnson as the Eagles’ secondary coach.

The Ravens and Eagles are holding three days of joint practices this week leading up to their preseason game Saturday night at the Linc, so Wednesday marked Harbaugh’s first practice at the NovaCare Complex since the final days of the 2007 season.

Harbaugh became Ravens head coach soon after 2007. Johnson spent one more year with the Eagles before his tragic death after a courageous battle with cancer.

“It’s great to be back,” Harbaugh said. “Just being here brings back incredible memories and moments. I think about Andy, and I think about teams that we had. Brian Westbrook ... We were joking [after practice] with [former Eagles special teamer] Ike Reese. We were talking about the Miracle at the Meadowlands — one of the Miracles at the Meadowlands ­— with Westbrook on the punt return.

“But nothing more so than Jim Johnson, nothing more so than the guy I would consider the greatest coach — the greatest defensive coach — in the history of football.

“We’re running half his schemes out here right now. He was a great man and a great mentor and a great teacher. Hi to [his widow] Vicky, hi to their family. That’s probably the best part of it.”

Johnson, inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame in 2011, left an unparalleled legacy in Philly.

From 2000 through 2008, the Eagles allowed the fourth-fewest points in the NFL. They reached the postseason seven out of nine years with Johnson running the defense and got to the NFC Championship Game five times, winning in 2004. In 19 playoff games with Johnson running the defense, the Eagles allowed only 18.4 points per game. Incredibly, in the second half of those games, the Eagles allowed fewer than six points per game.

“Jim was a huge influence,” Harbaugh said. “Jim, he welcomed me in here. I was coaching special teams, but he grabbed me and pulled me in there, giving me little duties and things like that and letting me learn.

“Not just that though, just the stuff on life. Playing golf with him. Ron [Rivera] and I and Pat Shurmur were with him in a foursome. And the Pro V4s, remember those balls? Titleist Pro V4s, I think they were called, Pro Vs had just come out, and Jim had just bought a six-pack of Pro Vs. Put one over to the right at Downingtown Country Club over there in the woods. Four foursomes played through while we were looking for his Pro V golf balls. You could just hear him muttering about that, right?”

What does that story have to do with football? Why did Harbaugh use it to illustrate his relationship with Johnson? Maybe something to do with persistence and determination. He would always find a way. No matter how long it took.

Harbaugh coached in the NFL for 11 years before getting a head coaching opportunity. Johnson coached in the NFL for more than 20 years and never got his shot.

“Football-wise, I’d say he’s probably the biggest influence,” Harbaugh said. “I learned more football in the NFL from him than anybody else, just learning defense in his system.

“The thing about Jim Johnson was — and we’ve learned this with our defense — we’ve taken our defense back to square one. We’re running a lot of our stuff old school, and Jim Johnson was old school.

“Jim Johnson always has a support player on the end of the line of scrimmage. Jim Johnson had somebody in every gap — two gap and playing technique through the man and not just running through a gap. He taught defense the way it was taught forever, and it never gets old.”

It was soon after that 2006 season ended that Reid moved Harbaugh — the NFL’s best special teams coach — to defense to make him more marketable as a college head coaching candidate.

He wound up getting an even better job. But Harbs remembers his first day on the job as an official defensive coach.

“The first thing [Jim] did was slap the playbook on the desk and basically said, ‘You ought to know most of this anyway, but learn it,’” Harbaugh remembered with a laugh. “He was the kind of guy that just expected you to dig in and start asking questions, and that’s how he was.

“Even when I wasn’t coaching the secondary, I asked him questions, and he would sit down and give you a lengthy explanation about the history of it and why they do it. But he expected you to work, and he expected you to study. He wasn’t going to hand it to you on a plate.

“But just learning the system was the toughest thing the first year for me. As much as you think you know, when you’re the guy teaching it and [with] all the adjustments and all the nuances of the thing, it was robust.”

No assistant coach has ever been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but Harbaugh said Johnson deserves that ultimate honor.

“There definitely should be a place for guys like that,” Harbaugh said. “To me, assistant coaches are the foundation of the game. Those are the lifers. How come there’s not a category for the Jim Johnsons in the Hall of Fame?"

Contact Us