How a conversation with Jim Harbaugh sparked Josh McCown's coaching career
The Vikings QB coach has found his passion in coaching and become integral to Kevin O'Connell's staff
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — In 2010, Josh McCown wasn’t sure if he was ever going to play in the NFL again. He spent that season with the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League and despite leading the start-up league that featured many former NFL coaches and players (including Denny Green and Daunte Culpepper) in passer rating, his phone was silent during the following free agency and beginning of training camp. Maybe the folks at the highest level had moved on.
It wasn’t until mid-August that a team came knocking. The San Francisco 49ers were interested in McCown coming out to be their No. 3 quarterback behind Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. So he flew out for a workout with 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh.
As one of the all-time most traveled journeyman quarterbacks in NFL history, McCown had been through plenty of workouts before. None of them were like this one. This time, the head coach did the workout along with him — and not even in athletic gear.
“[Harbaugh] was in the khakis and had his shirt tucked in — it was the same exact fit that he’s always in, the Harbaugh fit,” McCown told Purple Insider. “We go to throw in and he’s like, ‘hey, I’m gonna do this with you. I said, ‘that’s great.’”
They started warming up and Harbaugh was throwing fastballs at him. The San Fran ball coach, who played in the NFL from 1987 to 2000 and won 66 career games, made it clear that he wasn’t just out there to toss around the pigskin, he was out there to compete.
“It was hilarious, we throw all these routes and he’s right there with me,” McCown said. “He might have missed one. He’s like, ‘do it again! Let’s do it again!’ And I’m cracking up. But we had a great workout.”
Once Harbaugh and McCown were done with the throwing portion, the 49ers wanted to make sure that the veteran QB was in shape, so they asked him to run some gassers.
“I was like, Jim going to do these too?” McCown said laughing.
Harbaugh let the player take it from there.
“I’ll never forget that, man,” McCown said.
As memorable as the workout with Harbaugh was, McCown and the current head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers had a much more profound interaction a few weeks later.
In early September, the 49ers released McCown. At that point he hadn’t started a game since 2007 and figured that his career was probably over.
Before leaving San Francisco, McCown sat down to talk with Harbaugh.
“I was like, ‘hey, tell me about how you transitioned from playing to coaching and what that was like,” McCown explained. “I remember him saying, ‘man’s gotta work. He’s gotta do something. His kids gotta see him do something.’ In typical Jim fashion.”
McCown left the meeting feeling disappointed that he didn’t have a quarterback gig with the 49ers but inspired by the idea of getting into coaching.
More than any particular phrase or quote that resonated, the sheer amount of time that Harbaugh made for him to talk after his release — that was what being a coach was about.
“Just the amount of time he spent with me talking, I just appreciate that,” McCown said. “We just talked through everything.”
When McCown got back home to North Carolina, the head coach of his daughter’s school asked if he wanted to drop by a few practices and work with the quarterbacks. He loved it instantly and was invited to stay on for the entire season.
“Jim’s words echoing in my head, ‘man’s got to do something,’” McCown said. “I immersed myself into coaching and I had a blast. We had a great season with the high school team, won a couple of playoff games.”
He was ready to go down the coaching path, then Jay Cutler got hurt.
The Bears signed McCown on November 23, 2011, to back up Caleb Hanie. After he struggled and lost four straight games, Chicago turned to McCown. In the final game of the season, he beat the Minnesota Vikings 17-13.
That was enough for Chicago to want him back as Cutler’s backup the following season. But he was released again after camp as Chicago went with former Washington starter Jason Campbell. McCown didn’t just wander back to coaching, he literally ran back to the high school sidelines.
“I get cut, my wife meets me at the airport with my coaching shirt,” McCown said. “I got cut on a Thursday. I met her Friday and we went straight to the game and coached a high school game that night. And coached the whole season again, same thing. We went too deep in the playoffs.”
In mid-November 2012, Cutler got hurt and the Bears called again. McCown went again, though he did not appear in a game.
The following season McCown put together a hot stretch of games that would keep him in the NFL until 2020. He started five games and finished 2013 with 13 touchdowns, one interception and a 109.0 QB rating.
All along, in the back of his mind, McCown knew from those two seasons coaching high school that he would ultimately return to the coaching ranks.
“It was the craziest thing,” he said. “Really those two seasons kind of shaped and solidified like, okay, I wanna coach, I enjoy this.”
Coaching would have to wait for a while though. The next year (2014), Tampa Bay made him their starter and he started 38 more games following that magical stint with the Bears. Even in 2020, 18 years after his first appearance with the Arizona Cardinals, McCown was signed to Philadelphia’s practice squad. That year he became the oldest practice squad player in NFL history at 41 and the first player to ever work remotely, video conferencing into meetings and staying prepared in case disaster struck in the Philly QB room.
McCown’s vision for his future shaped the way he approached his late-career playing opportunities.
“It influenced how I approached the game, [I saw it] as a player through a different lens,” McCown said. “I really processed that last nine years like I was going to coach and try to help guys in the room that way.”
McCown didn’t jump instantly into NFL coaching, though he had been getting phone calls for years from teams interested in having him direct their QB rooms. Instead he went back to coaching high school. He was able to coach both of his boys’ senior seasons.
While he was having a blast coaching kids, McCown figured that he had spent so much time at the highest level of football that it made sense to join the NFL ranks once his kids graduated. But the four total seasons of working with students helped him immensely in understanding what type of coach he wanted to be when he got back into the pros.
“It was probably a compilation of like both the good and the bad of things I’ve experienced as a player and then wanting to transfer the good to the guys that I was coaching and then eliminate the bad from things that I heard or felt,” McCown said.
He also came to understand that you can’t throw the ball for the quarterback. That means that you have to learn how to articulate lessons in a way that each player will be able to understand them and transfer it to the field.
“I think as a player, you’re kind of like, ‘oh, I’ll just solve it in the game,’” McCown said. “I think as a coach, there’s a different level to that. The way at which I studied it, the way at which I had communicate it was different.”
In 2023, McCown was hired by Frank Reich to coach Carolina’s No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young. He was introduced right away to the harsh nature of NFL coaching. Young struggled and the Panthers started 1-10, leading to Reich and McCown being let go.
“You go through a situation like that and you’re like, ‘I don’t know man maybe this isn’t for me,’” McCown said.
But coaching is for him. Even if he didn’t start to truly figure it out until midway through his career, he went to college not knowing he would play nearly two decades in the NFL and had plans of becoming a history teacher and football coach someday. It’s in his blood. McCown wasn’t going to let one failure stop him.
In one of his many quarterback stop-offs, Cleveland, McCown played for an up-and-coming Kevin O’Connell, who served as quarterbacks coach for the Browns in 2015.
The two clicked immediately.
“I have been impressed with that dude since day one,” McCown said. “Just his capacity both for his ability to process football and then his ability to process people. Kevin is a fantastic human being and that goes a long way in this business and sticks out. It’s very rare that you have somebody like Kev who’s a high-character human who processes football at a high level like he does.”
McCown would occasionally get asked by hiring teams for names of rising coaches that he had worked with along the way. He constantly brought up O’Connell’s name. So when he had a chance to be reunited with KOC in Minnesota, he jumped at the opportunity.
“We kind of picked up what we left off in 2015 as far as just the synergy of how we see the position, how we believe the position should be coached and talked to and held accountable,” McCown said.
The ex-journeyman QB was brought in during a pivotal time in O’Connell’s coaching career. The Vikings drafted JJ McCarthy and signed Sam Darnold with hopes that he could win games while they developed the young QB behind the scenes.
After a strong offseason, McCarthy had to undergo meniscus surgery and was lost for his rookie year. Darnold led the Vikings to a 14-3 record.
This year, McCown again worked all summer as right-hand man to O’Connell in developing McCarthy, only to have the QB suffer an ankle injury that has kept him out. That has meant that Carson Wentz, a teammate of McCown’s in Philadelphia in 2019 has stepped into the mix. McCown was responsible for helping him get up to speed to start only a few weeks after he was acquired.
“That’s helped a lot, honestly, even just from the moment I got here, just trying to learn this playbook even when I wasn’t starting,” Wentz said of working with McCown. “But at the same time, he’s still the same Josh that I remember back in 2019 when we were playing together. Honestly, it’s been cool to see. He was always fired up every day, just brought a lot of energy back then, and he still was kind of the same way.”
McCown’s energy for coaching can be seen from a mile away on the practice field. The former player, who was once called upon to take snaps at wide receiver in Detroit, still has enough in the athletic tank to run routes for his quarterbacks. As the QBs warm up, he will be breaking in and out, grabbing footballs and pulling them in like he’s about to take a hit from a linebacker. Smiling the whole time.
The coaching hours are tight, so your ability to get a workout in or get a sweat in is few and far between,” McCown said laughing about his route running. “Sometimes because of our limited time on the field with players…sometimes to feel a moving target on a specific, if it’s a unique route, to feel the top of that route, the end of that route, like, hey, this is how he’s going to be moving.”
While there may be some science to it, McCown also feels like it brings a little extra layer of joy to the grind of the NFL.
“I think sometimes when you do that, you can bring some lightness to the field, and the guys are having fun, and they’re smiling,” McCown said. “From an emotional standpoint, they’re unlocking the best version of themselves because they’re not anxious. But at the same time, they know how focused our work needs to be. And so we’re always, as coaches, trying to strike that balance.”
Maybe McCown has also kept the Harbaugh workout in the back of his mind while he’s out there playing catch with his QBs. Though you won’t see him running around in khakis.
When the Vikings take the field against Harbaugh on Thursday Night Football, it will probably be in McCown’s mind how far he’s come in his coaching journey, which was helped along once upon a time by the Chargers’ legendary football coach.
“The humanity that he showed me of sitting with me, I am appreciative of that,” McCown said. “Just sitting and talking with me, it just helped me so much giving me clarity for next steps. And I’ll always be grateful for that.”
This was so good. Thank you for writing it.