The Harbaughs vs. The Mannings

This year's Super Bowl featuring Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh going up against his younger brother Jim Harbaugh of the San Francisco 49ers is truly a unique situation.

By this point you may have seen all of the Harbaugh coverage that you can stand, but you have to admit the odds of two brothers coaching against each other in the Super Bowl is pretty slim. Kathy Ensor, a member of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the statistics department chair at Rice University, has calculated the odds of brothers coaching against each other in the season's biggest game at 1 in 255 when the brothers are head coaches in different conferences of the National Football League.

The success of the Harbaugh brothers both reaching the biggest game in sports at the same time leads me to draw comparisons to the Mannings. It's like the Harbaugh brothers are the Mannings of coaching. No, Peyton and Eli haven't faced each other in the Super Bowl. But there have been some close calls, and they obviously know what it's like to play in it.

The comparison between the Harbaughs and Mannings even extends to the family patriarchs, Jack and Archie. Both sets of sons followed in their fathers' footsteps. As you are probably aware, Jack Harbaugh was a long time college coach and won a Division II national championship at Western Kentucky. Incidentally, Archie also had far more success in college as quarterback for Ole Miss than he did during the 11 seasons he was leading our beloved New Orleans Saints.

Jack Harbaugh and Archie Manning both deserve to be very proud of the incredible success their sons have had, as do their mothers. Featuring both dads in some type of confrontation over whose sons are better I think would be an ideal Super Bowl ad. Not sure what product it would be best suited for besides maybe the NFL Network itself.

What other comparisons have I missed between the Harbaughs and the Mannings?