Potential Vikings-Harbaugh Deal Fell Apart At The 11th Hour

MINNEAPOLIS — On Wednesday morning, all signs pointed to the Minnesota Vikings hiring Michigan's Jim Harbaugh to be the team's next head coach. Harbaugh, interested in returning to the NFL under a general manager he'd work with in San Francisco, was a clear frontrunner for the vacancy.

Harbaugh coaching in Minnesota appeared to be a lock, or at least he thought so. But the Vikings' front office staff saw it differently.

The Vikings met with Harbaugh for nine hours on Wednesday but never made him an offer.

Reporting from the Athletic's Chad Graff and Jon Krawczynski shows how any hope for a potential deal fell apart at the proverbial 11th hour:

Sometime around 3 p.m., for reasons that are not exactly clear, things started to take a left turn. The tenor started to change, and if there was any momentum at Harbaugh’s back as he tried to secure the job, it disappeared.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. CT, ESPN first reported that Harbaugh called Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel to tell him he was coming back to the Wolverines for the 2022 season and beyond.

Instead of hiring Harbaugh, the team is expected to hire Kevin O'Connell, the offensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Rams.

Due to NFL rules, the Vikings can't make the hiring official until after the Rams play in the Super Bowl, which is Feb. 13.

O'Connell, 36, follows the NFL trend of hiring younger and younger NFL coaches. He is 22 years younger than Harbaugh, and 29 years younger than the recently-fired Mike Zimmer.

Read more at The Athletic.