No Apology Neccessary, Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers Make Their Statement

When Jim Harbaugh made the move to coach professional football in a city just 20 minutes away from his Palo Alto headquarters, he never thought of himself as a student in the Ivy League-caliber system. If anything, the 49ers head coach taught everyone else a lesson on Sunday: The only way to beat a schoolyard bully is by running into him head on.

It’s what the 49ers did fearlessly when they strolled into the Motor City, aka the Lions’ den, steamrolling the ball in the direction of Ndamukong Suh and silencing a packed stadium that at one point was more ear-splitting than a squad of 20 descending Blue Angels. When the final whistle blew, the atmosphere suddenly resembled a library, and the noisiest reader made no attempt to contain his glee.  

The fun was just getting started.

Harbaugh jovially came bounding onto the field, pumping his fists and pulling up his shirt as if he were ready to chest bump one his of his much bigger players. He wrung Detroit coach Jim Schwartz’s whole arm as they passed and gave what appeared to be an overenthusiastic slap on the back. 

That of course set off a melee that’s been discussed on nearly every sports column and radio program across the country.

Schwartz claimed Harbaugh shoved him aside and shouted profanities at him as he was trying to offer his congratulations. However, we saw the scrum. It had nothing to do with Harbaugh and everything to do with his team losing its first game of the season.  

Here’s a guy taunting other players and dropping the F-bomb at the end of every game and suddenly he’s angry at someone else for not acting like an audience member in a Broadway play?

Give me a break.

To be sure, Schwartz probably didn’t care much for Harbaugh happily skipping towards the 49ers locker like a ninth grader who just scored a date with the prom queen, but Harbaugh never turned his head once to say anything.

Five seconds later, Schwartz was sidling up to Harbaugh the same way Jim Weaver used to do to Ron Luciana at every Baltimore Orioles game. I’m not very good at lip reading but here’s a general idea of what was being said:

"YOU LIKE THAT???? HUH???? HOW DOES THAT FEEL???? LET'S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT HUH??"

Harbaugh’s response was to simply look straight ahead. No obscenities were exchanged. He stared down at Schwartz disparagingly and told him “Get out of my face.” This calm approach seemed to enrage Schwartz even more as he had to be separated by the surrounding players and the officials as Harbaugh trotted into the team tunnel.

The funniest part of the fracas was Anthony Davis’ reaction when the diminutive Schwartz was going toe to toe with his head coach. After spending three hours shoving around the entire Lions defensive oline, Davis couldn’t stop smiling at this pint-sized doofus who managed to get everyone to put their helmets back on as if there was still a game going on.

The halftime panel over at CBS absurdly spent 15 minutes trying to exonerate Schwartz of any blame. You know, it takes two to tango, or in this case, one to completely overreact and turn a tranquil post-game gathering into a mini mosh pit in the end zone.  

Look, Harbaugh needs to wise up an act like more like an NFL coach instead of a player. Though a fierce competitor and someone who’s awfully good at getting results, he’s also a guy who can easily get caught up in the excitement of the game and unintentionally anger the opposition.

I remember a game 15 years ago when he ran across the field with his helmet off after the Dallas Cowboys missed a potential game-winning field goal as time expired. He came short of stopping at the big star and raising up his hands in celebration, so George Teague didn’t come up and clobber him from behind.

Harbaugh’s handshake antics were considerably tame by comparison, and Schwartz reacted as if Harbaugh had just pulled a Floyd Mayweather and sucker punched him in the face. Schwartz should probably consider taking some anger management classes during Detroit’s bye week or two doses of Vicodin before every game, because this isn't the only game the Lions are going to lose this year.

The guys wearing headphones are suppose to be setting examples for everyone else on the field. If your own players have to restrain you from trying to start a schoolyard brawl, they probably won’t pay much attention when you advise them not to goad fans or, you know, attack people.

CBS, in the meantime, needs to start shifting some afternoon personnel. Bill Cowher’s one-sided defense of Schwartz bordered on buffoonery, and you just can't count on Dan Marino to say anything lucid these days. Shannon Sharpe can’t articulate a thought, much less a sentence, and Boomer Esiason's just white noise coming from the right side of the screen.

Yesterday Harbaugh again took blame for the incident but refused to apologize. Nor should he.

Though his aggressive approach to the game certainly hasn’t made him any new friends, it’s not something he has to apologize for. Knowing Harbaugh, he won’t say “I’m sorry” unless he feels he’s actually done something wrong, and there’s not much anyone can think of ever since he took over as head coach.

After sleepwalking through the final six games of the season last year under Mike Singletary, this 49ers team under Harbaugh is playing with a lot more than just a chip on its shoulder. The 49ers don’t believe that they’re frontrunners in the league’s worst division, but one of the best teams in the NFL.

The latest example was another huge win against one of the few remaining undefeated teams. All week long the 49ers were forced to put up with the national media’s talk of how the perennial cellar dwellers were going to make quick work of them Sunday, hearing things like “I don’t see how they can possibly stop Calvin Johnson.”

Here’s what Johnson did on Sunday: Seven catches. No touchdowns.

Whoopy.

Unfazed and unconcerned, the 49ers calmly picked apart the Lions offense for four quarters. They sacked Matt Stafford five times—one for a safety—and held Ahmed Best to just 37 yards rushing after he gained 163 against the Bears last Monday.

Alex Smith didn’t have a very good game, though he would have if Yao Ming was playing receiver instead of Michael Crabtree. It didn’t really matter since the running backs spent most of their day racing Detroit’s safeties to the end zone.

Constantly faced with seven-man fronts, Frank Gore bounced off defensive ends quicker than a pinball and Anthony Davis tossed around 300-pound mammoths like rag dolls. The overeager tackle had jumped early on several occasions (the 49ers committed an absurd 15 penalties) but did an extremely good job of containing the pass rush and opening up descent sized holes for Gore to run through.

Like their coach, the 49ers made no attempt to hide their emotions after the game. This kind of fiery passion is what Harbaugh brings to every team and it’s an exciting change to what fans were used to seeing with the Rice-Montana-Young-Lott teams of the late '80s and early '90s.

You could call those Hall of Famers the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—without the ability to become invisible or live forever.  

Last week I chastised Harbaugh for running up the score against the Buccaneers and losing Josh Morgan as a result. Though I maintain the play was unnecessary, it was a part of his philosophy that currently has the Niners standing at 5-1: Never stop competing.

Don't expect Harbaugh to lose that fire anytime soon.

And check out the video above to see how coaches are suppose to behave at the end of a hard-fought, vicious duel.