by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh is in the fourth year of a five year deal that pays $5 million per year it’s considered a really strong deal for a rookie coach in the NFL. Harbaugh had quite a bit of success since coming from the college ranks and from Stanford. If Harbaugh was to go on the free agent market and the fact that he made three consecutive NFC Championships and got into the Super Bowl in his first season as head coach something that nobody’s done he would be getting a lot more than $5 million a year.

The fair maket value for someone like Harbaugh is that’s he’s underpaid and they didn’t know they were underpaying him when he signed that five year contract and he wasn’t going to Cleveland even though they were intrested in him in the off season and the Browns expressed they would pay him his worth. Harbaugh stayed with the Niners.

Every stop he’s made in his college coaching career like the University of San Diego, Stanford and now in the NFL with the Niners he’s been incredibly successful he turned around the programs in San Diego and Stanford and he did the same thing at the 49ers. He has took the team to three championships plus the Super Bowl.

As far as getting paid, in the NFL head coaches have a tendency to be under paid right now the highest paid head coach in the NFL is the New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick at $45 million for seven years and the Seattle Seahawks Pete Carroll who signed a new deal back in April with the Hawks worth $35 million for five years. If Harbaugh was to sign a new deal it probably will be around that Bilichick pay scale.

As far as the 2014-15 season is concerned there’s no reason to go crazy and try and negotiate a new contract as he’s under contract for two more seasons and Harbaugh is not going anywhere. A lot of that talk in the off season about going to Cleveland was a red hering and the Niners are not too worried about that. If your Harbaugh he might wait until the end of next season to talk with the team about his next contract in the off season.

Let’s face it Harbaugh has the resume he’s got the three championships and took the team to the Super Bowl in his first season as head coach at the 49ers. Harbaugh in terms of negotiations in the future he has the Niners over a barrel and the 49ers recognize how good a head coach that Harbaugh is and he doesn’t want to push it and maybe they’ll talk about it after this season.

Right now Hargaugh is getting $5 million a year and he’s getting underpaid and as far as negotiating under these same type of circumstances this has been the motivation of the 49ers organization in a lot of situations. The 49ers don’t want to talk turkey with Harbaugh and Harbaugh is fine with it and the 49ers should make post season and there’s no reason to think they’re going to collapse and Harbaugh should successfully get what he wants.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com