(Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun/TNS)Pat Leonard, New York Daily NewsThu, January 15, 2026 at 2:57 AM UTC·3 min readNEW YORK — The Giants told the world John Harbaugh was in their facility on Wednesday and they weren’t going to let him leave.
Then he left.
The organization has leaked incessantly about how hard they are working to land the former Baltimore Ravens head coach. Their desperation has created an enormous amount of pressure for them to hire him.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe is their priority. They are treating him as nothing short of their long-awaited savior.
Their chances looked good on Wednesday when Harbaugh, 63, came to East Rutherford, N.J., and made the Giants his first in-person team interview.
Co-owner Steve Tisch’s private plane was tracked from Baltimore/Washington International Airport to New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport by content creator Doug Analytics. And fans waited for a sign that the deal was done.
The Giants’ intent was to keep Harbaugh in the building until he agreed to become their next head coach. But the Atlanta Falcons, Tennessee Titans and Miami Dolphins all are very interested, too. And the Green Bay Packers’ situation still isn’t clear.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSo Harbaugh left the Giants’ building late Wednesday to fly home and reportedly was scheduled to meet the Tennessee Titans at his home on Thursday, per The Athletic, as his courtship continues.
Cue some serious nail-biting inside 1925 Giants Drive.
The Giants want Harbaugh so badly, Wednesday had the potential to include a hard conversation about GM Joe Schoen’s future and about a new organizational structure in order to accommodate their preferred head coach.
Sources have told the Daily News all along that they believe Harbaugh would want Schoen out so he could replace him with his own GM or that he at least would significantly reduce Schoen’s influence.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat way the head coach would have final say over the GM, similar to the dynamic of coach Mike Vrabel and GM Eliot Wolf in New England.
The Giants prefer a structure of a GM aligned with ownership while coaches “come and go,” as Schoen infamously said on Black Monday. But hiring Harbaugh would require them to turn that blueprint on its head and relinquish control in some previously protected areas of the building.
Harbaugh also would not arrive without making significant changes throughout the building. There are a lot of underperforming departments that have remained largely untouched that would no longer be safe from accountability.
The Giants should want wholesale change.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSince the start of the 2017 NFL season, Harbaugh has built a 95-54-0 (.637) regular-season record in Baltimore and made six playoff appearances in those nine seasons.
In that same span, the Giants went 44-104-1 (.295), went to the playoffs once and fired four different coaches.
They have a thing or two to learn.
What the Giants do best right now, true to Schoen’s tenure, is leak information.
There is no team pumping more narratives and defenses and updates into the national conversation right now than the desperate Giants.
One has to wonder what Harbaugh thinks about all the leaks, as well: How nothing that happens inside that building stays a secret.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe team’s hope is that their actions ultimately will back up their words — and that they’ll land their primary target.
Because suddenly the coaching search that supposedly was going to cast a wide net is now all-in on one man only.
The Giants have cornered themselves with their own rhetoric. They have no choice but to hire him or have it viewed as a colossal failure.
And on Wednesday, at least for now, Harbaugh left them without a deal — and with a lot more questions.
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