Harbaugh

In the end, the Throw-Down in Motown didn't amount to much. The NFL decided Monday not to fine San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh or Detroit Coach Jim Schwartz for their postgame dust-up at Ford Field, when a hard handshake and backslap by Harbaugh led to a heated exchange that required the coaches be separated. The incident happened after the 49ers handed the Lions their first loss, 25-19, and led to a brief standoff between the teams before they headed up the tunnel to their locker rooms.

San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh was tapped to drive the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. Harbaugh already has ties to IndyCar racing and Indianapolis. He's a co-owner of the Panther Racing team, which has two drivers in the 500: J.R. Hildebrand and Townsend Bell. Driving the Chevrolet Corvette to lead the 33-car field at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is "a tremendous thrill," Harbaugh said in a statement Tuesday night. Harbaugh, 49, got the racing bug attending the Indy 500 as a child.

When it comes to the Detroit Lions and New Orleans Saints, everything is up in the air. That's because their quarterbacks have thrown for a combined six miles this season. In fact, their playoff game is the first featuring two 5,000-yard passers. There were three of those this season: the Saints' Drew Brees — who broke Dan Marino's NFL record with 5,476 yards — New England's Tom Brady (5,235), and the Lions' Matthew Stafford (5,038). So the Stafford-Brees game Saturday will set the record for the matchup with the most combined passing yards (10,514)

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Feb. 3 - 9, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     CBS This Morning Gary Loveman, Caesars. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Mike Lupica; Toni Braxton. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC Good Morning America Rachel Zoe; Toni Braxton. (N) 7 a.m. KABC Live With Kelly and Michael Rooney Mara; Josh Groban performs. (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Kris Jenner; Joel McHale; Kendall and Kylie Jenner. (N) 10 a.m. KABC The Talk Billy Baldwin; chef Guy Fieri.

One is especially secretive. Another surprisingly candid. A third has turned back time (and turned down boom boxes), and a fourth has daily meetings with an irascible football legend nobody else ever sees. They are the NFL's new head coaches — six in all — and each is faced with the monumental challenge of reversing the fortunes of a down-on-its-luck franchise. Only one of them has been a head coach in the league before (Denver's John Fox), and one takes over a team that was .500 last year (Oakland's Hue Jackson)

With the NFL opener less than a week away, here are some of the pressing questions heading into the season: Will Peyton Manning be back for Week 1? Here's betting he will be, even though his off-season neck surgery was serious business. The four-time most valuable player has missed one snap because of an injury in his career, and that's when he had a broken jaw. He's riding a streak of 208 consecutive starts — second only to Brett Favre — and that matters to him. The Colts, who are as secretive as anyone when it comes to injuries, just extended Manning's contract for five years at $18 million per season.

Six weeks ago, Bill Walsh was near death. He couldn't eat and barely had the strength to speak. Leukemia had ravaged his body and left him hospitalized at Stanford University Medical Center, where doctors urgently filled him with chemotherapy drugs to fight the cancer and antibiotics to control his raging infections. Walsh, 75, who coached the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl championships from 1979 through '89, has been battling the disease since being diagnosed in 2004.

Everybody joked that Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday should be known as the Bros Bowl, the Harbowl, the Super Bros Bowl and the Super Baugh (yes, you have to think about the pronunciation a bit on the last one) in recognition of the San Francisco 49ers' Jim Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh as the first brothers to meet as coaches in the NFL's championship game. They're not twins. John is older by 15 months. Aside from Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis playing in the final game of his storied 17-year career and the debate over which quarterbacking style -- the dual-threat play of the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick or the pro-type pocket passing of the Ravens' Joe Flacco -- will win the day, it's been mostly about the Harbaugh family in the week leading up to Super Bowl XLVII.

Paul Justin will start at quarterback in place of Jim Harbaugh when the winless Indianapolis Colts play at San Diego on Sunday. Harbaugh suffered a sprained right ankle in Monday's loss to the Buffalo Bills. * Charger middle linebacker Kurt Gouveia had neck surgery to repair a herniation between two disks.

Jim Harbaugh agreed Tuesday to a four-year contract to remain as coach at San Diego, a non-scholarship Division I-AA school that had the winningest football team in town this fall. Harbaugh was courted by three Division I-A schools in recent weeks but chose to stay at the small Catholic university. In his second season as head coach, Harbaugh led the Toreros to a school-best 11-1 record and their first Pioneer Football League title.

John Harbaugh was a bit sheepish about his emotional outbursts at officials in Super Bowl XLVII, but his combustible younger brother said Tuesday he didn't regret his own eruptions of emotions. "We fight to win," San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh said in his season-capping news conference at 49ers headquarters. "And if you're asking does my personal etiquette need to be changed, more catatonic on the sideline? I don't anticipate that happening. " Jim Harbaugh was particularly upset about a pivotal play at the end of the game, when he felt receiver Michael Crabtree was held by Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith on fourth and goal from the Baltimore five-yard line.

NEW ORLEANS -- Seeing as the NFL is a copycat league, teams naturally want to emulate the blueprint of the franchise that wins it all. So mark this down: Losing at the end of the regular season can be a good thing. That's what the champion Baltimore Ravens did, dropping four of their last five games this season before igniting in the playoffs and knocking off Indianapolis, Denver, New England and finally San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII. And the Ravens were traveling a well-worn path.

Everybody joked that Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday should be known as the Bros Bowl, the Harbowl, the Super Bros Bowl and the Super Baugh (yes, you have to think about the pronunciation a bit on the last one) in recognition of the San Francisco 49ers' Jim Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh as the first brothers to meet as coaches in the NFL's championship game. They're not twins. John is older by 15 months. Aside from Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis playing in the final game of his storied 17-year career and the debate over which quarterbacking style -- the dual-threat play of the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick or the pro-type pocket passing of the Ravens' Joe Flacco -- will win the day, it's been mostly about the Harbaugh family in the week leading up to Super Bowl XLVII.

NEW ORLEANS — Everyone knows that Super Bowl XLVII pits coaching brothers John and Jim Harbaugh. But few people are aware the game is also father versus son. Jay Harbaugh, 23, whose father coaches the San Francisco 49ers, is a coaching intern for Baltimore. He works for his uncle, John, head coach of the Ravens, and he agreed to an extensive interview with The Times, provided the story run after the teams' last media availability of the week. That media window closed Friday morning with a joint press conference featuring the Harbaugh brothers.

NEW ORLEANS - John Harbaugh, coach of the Baltimore Ravens, stepped onto the convention center stage wearing a suit, a tie and a smile. Jim Harbaugh, coach of the San Francisco 49ers, followed him wearing khakis, sweatshirt and a stare. John Harbaugh gave a 184-word opening statement in which he celebrated the moment as an honor, recognized family members in the audience and offered a glimpse into his team's afternoon schedule. The word count for Jim Harbaugh's opening statement was two: "I concur.

Like her Super Bowl-bound older brothers, Joani Harbaugh is fiercely competitive. When she was 7, she tried out for a part in her school play, "The Wizard of Oz. " She wanted to be Dorothy but instead landed the role of a munchkin. "I was highly, highly offended," recalled Joani, who is five years younger than her brother, Jim, 49, coach of the San Francisco 49ers, and six years younger than John, coach of the Baltimore Ravens. "I do remember that I wasn't Dorothy or Glinda. So I decided to memorize the entire play in case anybody went down with the flu or something, they could put me in there.

Jim Harbaugh says he would rather sit on the bench with a winner than play immediately for a losing team. The former Michigan signal-caller is the rookie entry in the large field of quarterbacks at the Chicago Bears' mini-camp this week. He practiced with the other active entries--Doug Flutie, Mike Tomczak and Steve Fuller. Jim McMahon is still recovering from arm surgery and it is not known if he will play in 1987. Harbaugh does not mind the competition.

Times NFL columnist Sam Farmer and Mark Thompson (of "Mark and Brian" radio fame) talked about the weekend's conference championship games and the upcoming Super Bowl matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens. You can watch a replay of the discussion above. One topic discussed was the Harbaugh brothers, Jim and John, who are the head coaches for the two teams. As Farmer wrote earlier this week , John Harbaugh has an appreciation of history, and also a sense of perspective.

Ray Lewis has been playing in the NFL for a long time. How long? The Baltimore Ravens linebacker started playing so long ago that his first career sack was against Jim Harbaugh, who now is head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. And it just so happens that the Ravens and 49ers will be facing off in Super Bowl XLVII, which also happens to be Lewis' last game before retirement. That first sack came during Lewis' rookie year in 1996, when Harbaugh was playing for Indianapolis.