Tom Rock: John Harbaugh embraces the changes as he embarks on second act with Giants

John Harbaugh had just finished about an hour of non-stop interviews with a phalanx of television and radio reporters stretched across the practice field at the Giants’ indoor training facility like the receiving line at a royal wedding. Finally, he was able to stop and take a breath. Someone asked him if he still had a voice left to answer a few more questions.

“That’s what this is for,” he said before taking a swig of soda from the can in his hand to lubricate his throat.

For 18 years in Baltimore, Harbaugh’s most consistent prop had always been a can of Diet Coke, so it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to see him with his favorite beverage now that he is here with the Giants.

Except this wasn’t a Diet Coke. It was a Diet Pepsi. The Giants don’t serve Coke products and have a long-standing relationship with Pepsi that includes everything from the naming rights of a gate at MetLife Stadium to those free medium cups that once were offered to fans as a token of appreciation that became a symbol of organizational tone-deafness.

Harbaugh looked at the beverage a bit suspiciously and eventually seemed open to the subtle change in flavor. But just like everything else in his new life as a Giant, this probably will take some getting used to.

And that’s OK with him. It’s one of the things he is most looking forward to in this adventure.

After spending nearly two decades and about half of his professional life in one place with one team, Harbaugh, known for steadiness and consistency, is welcoming change . . . especially after speaking with a few of his closest confidants who have been through such transitions in their own careers.

The first is Andy Reid, who was head coach of the Eagles when Harbaugh was an assistant there. After 14 seasons in Philadelphia in which he reached the playoffs nine times and made a Super Bowl appearance but never won a Lombardi Trophy, Reid went to Kansas City. He has won three Super Bowls and appeared in two others in his 13 seasons with KC, undoubtedly one of the great second acts in all of sports coaching.

“Andy is a man of few words, but his four words to me were: ‘Change can be good,’ ” Harbaugh said on Tuesday. “That's what he said, ‘change can be good.’ He was excited. He's fired up for us. He's a good friend.”

Harbaugh turned to another sage on such matters in his brother, current Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh, who has led a much more nomadic existence in the profession. In the time since John Harbaugh was hired in Baltimore in 2008, Jim Harbaugh has been head coach at Stanford University, the 49ers, the University of Michigan and now the Chargers.

“He said, ‘You are going to be really excited to walk into that room for the first time with a different team, a team you haven’t been around, and to start fresh from the beginning and build it up the way you want to, new,’ ” John Harbaugh said. “Kind of taking all the things you know now that you have learned in the last 18 years, or the last 28 years. I just can’t wait. I can’t wait for the next team meeting to be with those guys and start talking about where we are going.”

And of course there is Tom Coughlin, who served as an early bridge between the Giants and Harbaugh. Before joining the Giants in 2004, Coughlin was the first coach of the expansion Jaguars and took them to the AFC Championship Game in January 1997 in their second year of existence (he did it again three years later). He is in the Ring of Honor of both teams.

At 63, Harbaugh certainly is not the same coach he was when the Ravens hired him at age 45. Nor is he the same coach the Ravens fired a little over two weeks ago.

“I think I have evolved as a coach the way you’d better evolve as a coach if you want to survive,” Harbaugh said. “You have no chance if you don’t. Look at all the coaches coming into the league, look at all the players coming in. Everything changes all the time.

"We talk to our coaches from a scheme standpoint, a development standpoint, that we have to keep it moving. As soon as you start getting comfortable with some scheme or some play, the way it is being run, you are going to get overtaken quickly because everybody studies you.”

He pointed to the 2024 Ravens offense that gained 7,224 yards and was the first in NFL history to top 4,000 in passing and 3,000 in rushing in the same season.

"Everybody watches every one of your plays all spring and tries to find a way to stop you,” he said. “You’d better be coming up with the next iteration of what you are going to do. Constant evolution is a requirement just to survive.”

There will be plenty of changes to come besides sodas and play-calling. Harbaugh is still getting used to those. Even after having been part of the league for so long, the scope of this new job can be daunting    compared to the relative sleepiness of the Inner Harbor.

“They say New York is a different kind of place, and I would say that's probably true, man,” he said after soaking in the standing ovation from a crowd of close to 300 representing ownership, former players and various other elements of the franchise. There also was a sea of 86 credentialed media members with dozens of cameras at the event.

Harbaugh noted the New York City skyscrapers off in the distance (“The skyline is a lot different,” he said) and the history of an organization that began operations more than a century ago. The Ravens, by contrast, played their first game in 1996.

Harbaugh called New York the “biggest stage.” You want star power? He now works not only for a Lombardi Trophy-winning organization but for an Oscar winner in team chairman Steve Tisch. And after his formal remarks, he took a moment to grab a quick snapshot with Chris Mara and several members of his family, including his daughter, movie star Kate Mara.

“How ‘bout that!” he exclaimed after the photo was taken. “This is pretty amazing right here. This is incredible.”

There already have been tremendous marketing opportunities, including an invite to appear on “The Tonight Show.” He might be the first head coach in NFL history to arrive with the direct approval of the President of the United States; Donald Trump posted several weeks ago on social media that the Giants should hire him.

“It's cool, and it's sports, it's sports,” he said. “Everybody is excited. Everybody follows it. At every level, people follow football, they follow the Giants, they follow the National Football League. Like we said, it's the biggest sport. This is the most iconic franchise in the biggest sport, so here we are.”

To make it all seem worth the effort and expense that this undertaking is costing, there still is one missing ingredient. Harbaugh hasn’t won anything yet for the Giants. Living up to the hoopla will require nothing short of doing something no one has ever accomplished: winning a Super Bowl as the head coach of two different teams.

A few have come close — Reid, Bill Parcells, Mike Holmgren, Dick Vermeil and Don Shula have won one and taken another team to the game; John Fox and Dan Reeves each took two teams there without winning either — but unless Sean Payton can manage to do it with the Broncos this season, Harbaugh will be aiming to be the first to do it in 2026.

It’s not something he seems to be shy about wanting for himself or his new team.

When asked about Reid’s remarkable run in Kansas City, Harbaugh said: “How about we do this? How about we deal with that right now? We'll sign up for that deal right now, what he did in Kansas City. Let's do that.”

To which the Giants undoubtedly said: Yes. Let’s.

That’s why they are paying him $100 million with the opportunity for more in bonuses over the next five years, why they dismantled their long-standing power structure of the head coach answering to the general manager, and why so many people in the organization were so happy on Tuesday.

They want change, too.

If Harbaugh can deliver on it, perhaps the Giants will even sneak a few Diet Cokes into the building for him.