Jim Harbaugh’s buyout begins at $3M and drops over…

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The details of the new deal that Jim Harbaugh has signed with the University of Michigan have come to light and it does not make it overly difficult for an NFL team to pry him away should there be interest in hiring him away from the Wolverines.

Harbaugh’s contract shows, via Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit News, that he will make $7.05 million for the 2022 season, which represents a sizable jump from the revised deal he agreed to before the 2021 season. Harbaugh saw his compensation cut in half to about $4 million, although he made back a sizable amount through bonuses for winning the Big Ten and advancing to the college football playoffs.

That number ticks upward over the life of the deal, which runs through 2026, but the buyout needed for him to leave for another job moves in the other direction. It would cost $3 million after the 2022 season and drop $750,000 per year from that point.

While Harbaugh has said that this offseason’s flirtation with the Vikings was a one-time thing, the buyout isn’t prohibitive to a team that might consider Harbaugh as a head coaching candidate in the future and his salary isn’t so high that he’d be leaving significant money on the table by making the move from Ann Arbor back to the NFL.