JIM HARBAUGH LOSES WHILE HIS BROTHER SEEKS ANOTHER TITLE WITH JACKSON

He wasn’t singing Black Eyed Peas songs when Justin Herbert threw four interceptions and was mangled by the Texans, who won on a day when John Harbaugh and the Ravens were pursuing bigger NFL glory

So many powerful words were said about Jim Harbaugh, coach of the Chargers, that dreamers wondered if he’d somehow win a Super Bowl for fire-scorched Los Angeles. What they didn’t realize is that his quarterback isn’t “one of the best of all time,” as he claimed all year. Justin Herbert struggled behind a weak offensive line Saturday but with four interceptions, he made history that can’t be ignored.

How does a “beast,” as Harbaugh calls him, throw more picks in one postseason game than he did throughout the regular season? “I let the team down,” Herbert said. “You can't turn the ball over like that and expect to win. ... I just have to be better. Obviously, it was not good enough by any standards today, and I put the team into a jeopardy-type position with all the turnovers, so on me to get better.”

The crackling coach, who led Michigan to a 15-0 national championship with crooked sign-stealing, is gone until next season in the big leagues. It doesn’t matter how he sang Black Eyed Peas songs to his team and worked out with players in multi-colored Jordan cleats. The Chargers fell 32-12 in Houston, where the Texans were masterful on defense and allowed C.J. Stroud opportunities to find his passing game. They have won a playoff game in the first two seasons of Stroud and coach DeMeco Ryans, only the third tandem to do so.

“Our defense, they dominated today. That's who we want to be,” Ryans said. “They played our brand of football. They stopped the run first. That's what I'm most proud of is how we stop the run. And when we stop the run, you make a team one-dimensional, and that's when our defensive line just causes havoc.”

This was a day when one Harbaugh lost and the other won. The Baltimore Ravens try to win a Super Bowl, in a second time for John Harbaugh, behind a commanding Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry. So vocal were the home fans in chanting “MVP! MVP! MVP!” for Jackson, he had to calm them down with hand motions. Is this team finally capable of overcoming his playoff flaws — now 3-4 in his career — and preventing the Kansas City Chiefs from winning a third straight championship? Jackson threw two touchdown passes while Henry, his 247-pound backfield bulldozer, scored twice and gained 186 yards as the Ravens outrushed the Pittsburgh Steelers by a blurry 299-29 margin.

“My dad’s proud. Jack Harbaugh’s proud right now. He likes to pound the rock,” said Harbaugh after a 28-14 victory. “Derrick Henry was running hard, physical. Lamar started it off. Lamar carried the ball at different times in the first drive or two. They understood how to win a football game like this. It’s one thing to know it, it’s another thing to execute it and do it, and they did it.”

Has Jackson learned lessons after his previous stumbles in January? “Yes. There’s your answer,” said Harbaugh, who also has described his quarterback as a historic great. “I’d like to elaborate, but there’s really no elaboration. It’s pretty clear that that’s the truth.” It’s time a man who rules regular seasons — he’s the first to throw more than 40 TD passes and fewer than five interceptions, with more than 4,000 yards passing and 900 rushing — conquers the serious landscape.

“I’m just too excited — that’s all. Too antsy, that’s all,” Jackson said. “I’m seeing things before it happens, like, ‘Oh, I have to calm myself down.’ But just being more experienced, I’ve found a way to balance it out.”

Will he continue to flourish with Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes on the other side? “We know what’s at stake. It’s win or go home. You’re just locked in, dialed in,” Jackson said. “You have to try to be mistake-free. The game is won with the turnover battle and keeping the ball in your control — moving the ball down the field, getting first downs, putting points on the board, obviously. That’s how you win those games.”

“He’s locked in. Completely locked in,” teammate Mark Andrews said. “He’s the leader of this team, and at the end of the day, he takes pride in winning games. Everybody knows what his end goal wants to be.”

“Lamar is Lamar,” Henry said. “The best player in this league, and I feel like if anyone plays with him, he’s a benefit to any player. I’m happy and glad to be able to play beside him. A future Hall of Famer, and he makes everything different for everybody. He’s a dynamic player. You have to respect his arm and his legs. You always have a chance.” All of which was rebounded by Jackson, who said, "Do you watch the movie 'Cars'? When Lightning McQueen was just flying flashing past, that's how Derrick looks. He was running past all those guys. It just looked like a movie, bro. I'd rather be watching it than being on the other side of the ball."

In Pittsburgh, the Steelers need a quarterback. Or will Mike Tomlin survey coaching opportunities around the NFL? He shrieked about those published comments last week, but it’s worth asking if he’d listen if, say, Chicago called? Russell Wilson ends with five straight losses. Is Justin Fields ready to become more than a one-dimensional player? Would he like another job in another town instead of losing early in the playoffs?

“I’m just assessing what transpired tonight,” Tomlin said. “As I told you guys earlier in the week, those are my bags, not this collective's bags. And so my energy is on that group in there and what they were willing to give and the journey that we've been on this year and certainly it came to a disappointing end tonight.”

In the end, it didn’t matter how Jim Harbaugh gave lunch pails and back-scratchers to his players. He continued to defend Herbert as he always does. “A complete beast,” he said. “He’s got to be able to finish a throwing motion. Quarterback’s got to be able to do that, and we didn’t put him in the position to do that enough.”

At least Michigan beat Ohio State. It’s better than how the Chargers ended his first season in a tragedy-torn community, which was preoccupied and likely didn’t care.

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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.