Here’s the deal: you can always find some of the best rivalries in the NFL regarding the teams or the players. Say, the Packers and the Bears, who are one of the oldest rivals in the league. And if we talk about the players, who can forget Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen’s rivalry? But what about the head coaches? Well, they can stir up some serious drama too.

Take Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll, for example, who have been bitter rivals for ages. Sure, both the head coaches have an age gap of 12 years, but their rivalry started back in 1987 when Harbaugh was a rookie QB for the Bears, and Carroll was a third-year secondary coach of the Vikings. Fast forward to now and both of them are all set to face off after years in the AFC West division in the next season, as Carroll is now the HC of the Raiders. But! But!! Ahead of the next season, the Chargers’ HC cleared the air on his competitor.

Harbaugh made an appearance on Dan Patrick’s latest episode of his show. When Patrick asked, “Are you and Pete Carroll on friendly terms now that he’s coaching the Raiders in your division? You guys have had a lot of battles,” Harbaugh replied with a respectful and diplomatic statement. “A lot of battles. It’s a respect. I have a lot of respect for him. I mean, the competitor that he is, the teams that he produces. We just talked the other day, Sunday, as a matter of fact. I’d like to feel that he’s got the same kind of competitive respect for me.”

Well, if we’re talking about Carroll, the competitor, we can’t ignore how he turned USC into an absolute powerhouse, running through seven consecutive Pac-10 like a wrecking ball. On the other hand, Harbaugh couldn’t stack up a championship as an HC of Stanford, but he absolutely thrashed Carroll’s USC the first time they clashed against each other. Harbaugh led his team to a nail-biting 24-23 win despite being 42-points underdogs, and the game was eventually declared as the biggest point-spread upset in college football history.

Fast forward to their NFL career, Caroll Joined the Seahawks back in 2010 and Harbaugh took the helm of the 49ers a year later. Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll meet a record 9 times from 2011 to 2014 and guess what? The newly appointed Raiders’ head coach has an upper hand with 5-4 track record against his bitter rival.

Back to the present and Harbaugh led the Chargers to a 11-6 record while securing a wild-card round spot. However, the team didn’t make it further in the season. On the other hand, Caroll put pen on the paper and now will take charge as the next head coach of the Raiders. Now, it would be exciting to see their next season considering both of them will play against each other in the AFC West division.

Jim Harbaugh is not as good as his father?

“It would take my heart stopping for me not to be out there on the sideline.” These are the words of 61-year-old Charger’s head coach, Jim Harbaugh. Remember that week 6 game against the Denver Broncos? Yep, the Los Angeles team won 23-16, but that was one of the toughest game for the head coach. The reason? Well, Harbaugh suffered an atrial flutter, a type of arrhythmia that causes the heart to beat at an abnormally high rate.

Since then, he’s recovering from his health issues. And when Dan Patrick told him, “you need to bulk up,” ahead of his face-off with Pete Carroll, Harbaugh talked about his health. Spoiler alert: he mentioned that he’s certainly not as strong as his dad used to be. “No question about it. I hit the training environment hard,” Harbaugh stated.

He further pointed out: “It’s been a good year for that. The old Iron Horse is going in for some fine tuning you know I’ve got my hip replaced 13 days ago and get getting the arhythmia taken care of and doing everything in my power to get as healthy as I can…I mean not as good as my dad (when asked about his muscle definition), you know, my dad has got these natural, you know, biceps that I gotta work a lot harder at it.” 

All in all, it is safe to say that Jim Harbaugh is surely 61-years-old right about now, but he’s not giving up his fighting spirit until the last minute. That said, the head coach is gearing up for the next season.