Here’s a straightforward but not simple question: Should the NFL suspend Jim Harbaugh for the sign-stealing violations which last week earned him a 10-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA?
On one hand, the idea of the NFL suspending Harbaugh for violations he committed in college seems absurd. What right or authority does the National Football League have to suspend someone who’s already being punished for something done while they weren’t on an NFL payroll?
On the other hand … it’s happened before.
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Urban Meyer, of all people, has pointed out a scarlet-glowing loophole in the Harbaugh punishment … namely, that Harbaugh has escaped the NFL’s enforcement while another notable figure in the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, Jim Tressel, wasn’t quite so lucky.
“There’s an elephant in the room here, boys, though, that no one’s talking about,” Meyer said on his Triple Option podcast. “When Jim Tressel was fired” — technically, Tressel resigned — “at Ohio State and he was given a suspension, Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League, came out and said that we’re going to honor that suspension.”
Tressel’s fall came about as a result of Ohio State’s TattooGate scandal, where players traded autographs for tattoos — which, on its face, seems an absurd overreach of NCAA enforcement. But further investigations revealed that the autograph scandal was just one part of a far more wide-reaching culture of corruption on multiple fronts. The Department of Justice first notified Ohio State about the tattoo incidents, for instance, as a result of its investigation into the tattoo parlor, and any time your players are frequenting a DoJ-targeted establishment, trouble isn’t far behind.
Tressel professed ignorance of the scandal’s many tendrils — a frequent and familiar defense for head coaches — but the NCAA hit him with a five-year show-cause penalty anyway. He resigned from Ohio State before the 2011 season. Later that year, he accepted a job with the Indianapolis Colts, and served a six-game Colts-imposed suspension.
“Any chance that Roger Goodell and the NFL [suspend Harbaugh]?” Meyer asked this week. “Of course not. And I don’t know why.” (Meyer didn’t actually call for Harbaugh’s suspension, despite aggregators’ allegations that he did; he was pointing out the apparent discrepancy in punishments.)
So why isn’t the NFL similarly suspending Harbaugh for violations incurred during his tenure in the NCAA? (Yahoo Sports has reached out to the NFL for comment.)
At the time the Colts suspended Tressel, Goodell endorsed the decision. “I think it was clear that if they didn't take an appropriate action,” he said, “I would have taken appropriate action.”
In connection with the Tressel case, Goodell also focused on Terrelle Pryor, one of Tressel’s Ohio State players who was served with a five-game NCAA suspension but opted instead to enter the NFL’s supplemental draft. He was signed by the then-Oakland Raiders.
“In my judgment, allowing players to secure their own ineligibility for college play in order to avoid previously determined disciplinary consequences for admitted conduct reflects poorly not on college football, which acted to discipline the transgressor,” Goodell said, “but on the NFL, by making it into a sanctuary where a player cannot only avoid the consequences of his conduct, but be paid for doing so.”
Did Harbaugh use the NFL as a “sanctuary” to “avoid the consequences” of the sign-stealing investigation? That’s something that only Harbaugh himself can answer, but the dates are the dates: Harbaugh was suspended for the sign-stealing scandal (in addition to another suspension) for three games in November 2023. He then won the 2023-season national championship on Jan. 8, 2024, and accepted a job as the Los Angeles Chargers’ head coach on Jan. 24.
Before the 2024 NFL season started, the NCAA slapped Harbaugh with a one-year suspension and a four-year show-cause penalty for earlier violations. But he coached the Chargers without NFL recriminations, leading Los Angeles to an 11-6 record and a playoff berth. Now, Harbaugh has another 10 years of show-cause hanging over his head via the NCAA's ruling last week, plus that year-long suspension … quite a substantial increase over the five years that Tressel received from the NCAA that, as noted, earned him a six-game suspension in the NFL. But nothing for Harbaugh? You can see why this might not sit well if you’re looking for equal justice under the NFL’s rule.
What's more, the NCAA's discipline of Tressel focused on off-field issues involving improper benefits, while Harbaugh was punished for on-field issues that, theoretically, gave the Wolverines a competitive edge. If you're Roger Goodell, which should you be more concerned about going forward?
Yes, Urban Meyer as the former head coach of Ohio State, Michigan's fiercest rival, has skin in this game. Still, he has a point. The NFL is very clearly severing itself from its over-regulated, enforcement-heavy past … and Harbaugh is the beneficiary.
The Tressel punishment came at a time when the NFL was styling itself as judge, jury and executioner for all matters that came within its purview, and even a few that didn’t. This was the era of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal, among others, and the NFL was clearly flexing its power in obvious, and at times controversial, ways.
The league clearly has decided to leave such posturing and enforcement in the past, and if that means breaking with established precedent, so be it. The new business of the NFL is business, not punishment. Ohio State fans might not be pleased, but Jim Harbaugh will be coaching — without suspension — in the NFL for a long, long time to come.
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