New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh finally addressed the fallout from the Abdul Carter and Jaxson Dart situation connected to a Donald Trump rally. And his take? It wasn’t a disaster. It was an opportunity.
Speaking on the Dominique Foxworth Show released Monday, July 13, Harbaugh said the drama forced some uncomfortable but necessary conversations inside the locker room. And instead of tearing the team apart, he thinks it might have brought them closer together.
“I think that emotional intelligence that you’re talking about, it takes everybody having a mindset that we are in here to get out and play well together,” Harbaugh said. “And that’s going to be really important for all of our success. And now, let’s make some really wise decisions on how we want to go about doing that.”
Harbaugh pointed directly to the Carter-Dart situation as a test case for how the Giants handle division. He framed it as part of a larger process of figuring out how the team operates under pressure.
“It may be like the thing we went through with Jaxson and Abdul, the conversations we had around that — that’s one little piece of that journey in deciding how we’re going to operate together,” he said. “I think a coach is responsible for being aware of all of those things every single day that are happening in real time that are going to bring us together so that we can operate together when the battle hits the fan.”
Foxworth asked Harbaugh if he saw this as a potential positive. Harbaugh didn’t hesitate.
“One-hundred percent, yes, truly an opportunity,” he said. “Those are welcome things because those are going to happen. I told the guys, this is not a one-off.”
Players Stepped Up Before the Coach Had To
The most interesting part of Harbaugh’s comments might be what he said about his own role. He admitted he “didn’t have to say anything, really.” The players handled it themselves.
“They (the players) laid the ground rules down for the guys and decided how it would be approached going forward,” Harbaugh said. “So now, when these waves keep coming in from the ocean and crashing against our shore, I think we’ll be better prepared for them going forward because we’ll be expecting them. And we’ll be talking about how we’re going to deal with them.”
It’s rare to hear a head coach say his team sorted out a politically charged issue without his intervention. But Harbaugh seems comfortable with that dynamic. He’s betting that letting players figure it out now will pay off later when something even bigger comes along.
Because something will. Harbaugh knows that. He said this isn’t a one-time thing. Political conversations are part of the NFL now, whether teams like it or not. The question is how they handle it when the cameras are off.
For the Giants, it sounds like the answer is: let the players lead, and trust them to get it right.
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