The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl on Sunday, and it might have been one of the most emotional wins in Super Bowl history. It was very fitting, considering that the emotional season the Ravens had up to that point was one of the main talks leading up to the game. An emotional season it was, right up to the end of the game when one coach actually said to another on an NFL field, “I love you.”
Not only did he say it on a very manly NFL field, but he said it with a string of reporters on all sides. Those reporters were waiting to see the first few minutes of fall-out when one brother’s biggest moment of his career comes at the expense of his own brother. What they saw, and captured on film, was brief. Jim Harbaugh, coach of the 49ers, shook his brother’s hand and congratulated him. John Harbaugh, winning coach of the Ravens, shook back, said a quick “I love you,” along with a “good job.”
That was it. Jim was off to console his players and tell them what a great comeback they nearly made; and John was off to celebrate with his Ravens. But on Monday, John sat down with Savannah Guthrie and Willie Geist on the Today show and gave more insight into this biggest brotherly battle in recent history.
“I’m just so proud of him,” said John. “I think he’s the best coach in football. What he’s accomplished the last two years with the San Francisco 49ers, what their team has accomplished and their coaches, is unparalleled. I just couldn’t be prouder of him.”
He also touched on the blackout, and the boost that seemed to give his brother’s team.
“They did a great job,” he said. “They changed momentum, they swung it. It really wasn’t the lights or the power outage of anything like that. It was the 49ers. Not unexpected, going against my brother all these years — you had the feeling he would come roaring back. That’s a great football team, and I’m proud of Jim and very impressed with that team.”
When asked though, if the two Harbaugh brothers would ever sit down to watch the game together, he came back with another brotherly answer, saying, “Absolutely not.”