HARBAUGH WILL ESCAPE MICHIGAN AND IS OFF TO ONE NFL PLACE … LAS VEGAS

A sign-stealing wretch will flee college football and take a waiting gig with one NFL franchise, the Raiders, who’ve fired a coach and general manager and can hand gigs to a complete control freak

     Whether it’s Bill Belichick and Spygate, Sean Payton and Bountygate and Tom Brady and Deflategate, or Michael Vick and his dogfighting ring, the NFL manages to get over sins. Roger Goodell and the owners won’t be banning Jim Harbaugh for his backwoods-scuffing, outlying, sign-stealing criminology. They don’t even regard college football as anything but a subservient hiccup for the playoffs.

     What’s happening now, about midway through the league’s regular season, is a not-so-sleepy angling for the Michigan head coach with a cloak-and-dagger Marine Corps captain. Do you really think Harbaugh, so into a national championship that he sends Connor Stalions to a Central Michigan sideline to spy on Michigan State, is committed to staying in Ann Arbor another year? He is eyeing his next gig. And firmly — after trying several times, to the point his bosses docked his salary — that time has come suspiciously for the fraudulent.

     The Big Ten Conference and its baseball-weaned commissioner, Tony Petitti, seem prepared to herald the holidays and let Harbaugh compete for another title before he leaves. The NCAA could take years to explain what he has done wrong. ESPN wants Michigan in the final College Football Playoff with four teams, for bad-guy ratings. Harbaugh knows exactly what’s going to happen, as usual, saying this week, “You just have to let it play out, cooperate with the investigation and watch how it plays out. The speculation part, as I've said, I've got too much of a one-track mind on coaching the team to engage on every piece of speculation.”

     But he will engage on the next level. Because that’s what Harbaugh does, as a disgusting investigation proves again.

     What makes the most sense for a quarterback whisperer are the Los Angeles Chargers, directed by Justin Herbert. What makes the most sense in a Hollywood vein are the same-stadium Rams, who might watch Sean McVay give up coaching and take a network broadcasting gig. What makes the most sense in a complete organizational mash-up are the Chicago Bears, who may not have one of the top two picks and might not draft Caleb Williams or Drake Maye, continuing a QB shambles that may fall to a willing migrant. What makes the most sense, in a complete predicament, is ignoring a crook and ignore he played for the Bears and Chargers.

     But the Las Vegas Raiders love the gangsters, don’t they? And owner Mark Davis, in a dozen years of controlling the franchise after the death of father Al Davis, is in zero mood to hire a ninth coach who will stick around no longer than a craps game. His appointment of Josh McDaniels was an all-time stinker, worse than he was in Denver, not lasting two years with the league’s 31st total offense and worst in rushing. He whiffed horrendously in underusing two All-Pros, receiver Davante Adams and running back Josh Jacobs. He finished 9-16 and further discredits his tutor in New England, Belichick, and makes you ask how he succeeded with Brady, who is helping Davis as a Raiders owner and kicked in between 5 and 10 percent of the franchise fee.

     “It just seemed we were going in the wrong direction,” Davis told ESPN. “So, with the trade deadline, I just felt it was time to make a change, make a move. My job, my role is to give them all the tools possible for them to succeed.”

     Now, wouldn’t Brady be first in line — as a Michigan man — to bring Harbaugh to Vegas? Davis also fired the general manager, Dave Ziegler, meaning the next coach could run his entire front-office production. The interims are in place, with Antonio Pierce as coach and Champ Kelly as GM. It couldn’t be a more logical time for Harbaugh to cut a deal as a control freak. This as the Wolverines prepare for Ohio State while the CFP selection committee refuses to reject Michigan, while under investigation.

     “Fact of the matter is no one knows what happened,” said CFP executive director Bill Hancock, whose group has Michigan third this week. “The NCAA is dealing right now with allegations only. The committee’s judgments are based on what happened on the field. And clearly Michigan has been a dominant team.”

     If Harbaugh can go back in time, he’ll remember days as a quarterbacks coach with the Raiders for two seasons in 2002-03, before heading to college for his first head coaching gig at the University of San Diego. He has wanted back in the pro game, especially amid struggles to beat Ohio State, and went behind the back of his Michigan superiors to interview with the Minnesota Vikings in February 2022. Kevin O’Connell, then 36, got the gig. Harbaugh turns 60 in December.

     Any karma in the Big House would defy him in 3 1/2 weeks, if the top-ranked Buckeyes beat him. He’s tired of the college game, saying in August that athletes should cash in from the billions generated by the sport. “We all should be about diversity, equity and inclusion. I'm calling for a system that is fair, equitable and benefits all involved,” he said. “Don't exclude the student-athletes from the profits. My opinion, you can't say you're about diversity, equity and inclusion, if you aren't willing to include the student-athletes in revenue sharing.”

     He didn’t have an NFL job to take at the time. At present, Davis and Brady can whisk him away, championship or otherwise. Some tortured fans in Chicago would love to see the McCaskeys take a grand stance. Their latest bad management rage, with Ryan Poles as GM and Matt Eberflus as coach, is another debacle. The human resources department has more say in running the coaching staff, with defensive coordinator Alan Williams leaving in September before running backs coach David Walker was fired this week for workplace conduct issues. Poles hired Eberflus, who brought in the two goners. Neither man should have his job, including Poles, who traded a second-round pick for defensive end Montez Sweat, who might depart as a free agent anyway. Certainly, chairman George McCaskey isn’t paying for Harbaugh, his old quarterback.

     Once upon a time, he blew off a play sent in by coach Mike Ditka. The Bears blew a 20-point, fourth-quarter lead and lost 21-20. “A bad call, a bad audible,” Harbaugh said. “It was my fault.”

     He went on to make an all-time coaching misdeed. This time, he’ll be given a break for his shame in Vegas, where old men go to correct a lapse.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.