Shortly after Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti confirmed on Jan. 6 that he had surprisingly decided to part ways with longtime head coach John Harbaugh, stories emerged suggesting that quarterback Lamar Jackson and other Baltimore players helped convince Bisciotti to make the move.
Additional reports claimed that some Ravens players viewed offensive coordinator Todd Monken “as increasingly standoffish and unwilling to collaborate with players.” On Tuesday, Bisciotti shared that he spoke with Jackson and “a bunch of” veteran members of the locker room before the owner showed Harbaugh the door.
Did Lamar Jackson have a problem with John Harbaugh?
“Lamar is really, really a non-confrontational person,” Bisciotti said, per Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk. “When I spoke with him Monday night, he said to me, ‘Everybody’s saying I have a problem with Monken. I don’t really have a problem with Monken. I don’t know where that comes from.’ And he said, ‘I hear that I’ve got a problem with Harbs, and I don’t have a problem with Harbs. I don’t know where that comes from.'”
Jackson accumulated a playoff record as a starter of 3-5 under Harbaugh from 2018 through the 2024 season. The 2025 Ravens then missed the playoffs after they suffered a Week 18 loss that dropped them to 8-9.
As Scott Polacek of Bleacher Report noted, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport was one insider who initially reported that Harbaugh “lost the locker room” and that Ravens players “had doubts about whether or not they wanted to play for [Harbaugh] as their head coach.” According to PFT’s Charean Williams, Bisciotti said on Tuesday that his “instincts” helped guide his decision to fire Harbaugh after Baltimore’s regular season wrapped up.
When Steve Bisciotti knew he was probably firing John Harbaugh
“I don’t think the players had a large part of my decision,” Bisciotti added. “My partners here, that’s an 80-20 thing. I don’t think I’d be a very good leader if I didn’t ask the top players in my organization that have been here the longest. No, Lamar didn’t have an outsized part of my decision. My decision, I think by Monday [Jan. 5], was pretty much set. I think by the time I got off the phone with Lamar, I had told him that I think my position was pretty set.”
Per The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec, Bisciotti also said that Jackson will have “a lot of say” but “no power” regarding the hiring of Harbaugh’s replacement. It remains to be seen if that will actually be the case.
