The Minnesota Vikings cleaned house after the 2021 season. They fired general manager Rick Spielman and head coach Mike Zimmer. Spielman had been general manager of the team since 2012, while Zimmer was the head coach for eight seasons.

The organization wasted very little time filling the general manager spot, as they hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to lead the front office. Now, it is time for them to find a new head coach to lead the team on the field.

One surprising name that has emerged in their search is Michigan head coach, Jim Harbaugh. There seem to be rumors every offseason of Harbaugh making his return to the NFL, but nothing ever comes of it. This time around, it sounds like there is a legitimate chance that he makes the leap back to the NFL.

According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, Harbaugh “conveyed legitimate interest” in taking the Vikings’ head coaching job. Minnesota got the feeling that he is “ready to return to the NFL” and is “in the mix”, Fowler added.

Harbaugh was the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers for four seasons before taking the job at his alma mater. Before that, he was the head coach at Stanford, in Palo Alto, where he attended high school.

With the 49ers, Harbaugh found plenty of success. He quickly turned around a 49ers team who hadn’t had a winning season or playoff appearance since 2002. In his first season, in 2011, the 49ers went 13-3 and advanced all the way to the NFC Championship Game, where they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants.

They would get over the hump the next season, advancing to the Super Bowl to face off against the Baltimore Ravens, who were coached by his brother, John Harbaugh. Another winning season in 2013 followed, but they lost in the NFC Championship game to the Seattle Seahawks.

The 2014 season was the only one in which Harbaugh failed to reach the postseason as head coach of the 49ers and he subsequently left the team to become the head coach at Michigan. There were rumors throughout the season that regardless of how things went, he would not be back with the team.

The Vikings are hoping that if Harbaugh is hired, he can help turn things around in a similar fashion. Minnesota was 8-9 in 2021, but they lost eight games by one score. If you turn just two of those close losses into victories, the Vikings likely qualify for the postseason.

The link to the Vikings is a strong one also because Adofo-Mensah and Harbaugh crossed paths in San Francisco in 2013 and 2014. Seeing first-hand the kind of impact Harbaugh can have as a head coach, it is no surprise that he is trying to link up again with him in Minnesota.