The Las Vegas Raiders will take on the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 2 of the 2025 NFL season. It will be a matchup of epic proportions, not just because it is a primetime Monday Night Football matchup between two AFC West foes, but because of which two men are leading these two teams.
For the Raiders, it is Pete Carroll, the oldest head coach in league history, who has 19 years of NFL head coaching experience and a Super Bowl victory under his belt. For the Chargers, it is Jim Harbaugh, who recently won a college national championship with the Michigan Wolverines.
Not only is this a battle between two experienced and legendary head coaches, but their rivalry is as storied as anyone's, and it is perhaps the best in the game of football. Now at their third stop where they're forced to face each other annually, these two cannot leave each other alone.
Raiders vs. Chargers is latest chapter of Pete Carroll-Jim Harbaugh rivalry
It all started back in 2007 when Harbaugh took the job at Stanford, which meant he would play Carroll's USC Trojans yearly in the Pac-10 conference. Harbaugh's Cardinal actually went 2-1 against Carroll in three matchups, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Harbaugh and his team pulled off an unbelievable upset against the 40-point favorite Trojans in the first-ever matchup between the two, which prompted a bit of harsh feelings. Carroll and his team clapped back with a huge lopsided win the following season.
Carroll apparently "iced" the Stanford kicker despite being up big, and Harbaugh took exception to this. The following year, with Stanford leading by a large margin, Harbaugh and his team attempted to run up the score, going for a two-point conversion. This led to an iconic post-game meeting, which set the stage for their future matchups.
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In 2010, Carroll took the head job for the Seattle Seahawks, and the following year, Harbaugh followed him to the NFC West and was named the coach of the San Francisco 49ers. This meant the two would play twice a year for the foreseeable future.
The all-time series between these two coaches is 6-6, with Harbaugh owning a 2-1 advantage at the college level and Carroll having a 5-4 advantage at the NFL level. Carroll has also won five of the last six matchups, including yet another iconic game in the 2013 NFC Championship Game.
Countless stories and press conferences capture just how much these two coaches, and as a result, their teams, dislike each other. This includes Thursday's press conference, in which Carroll, in a tongue-in-cheek way, said that he has no fond memories of his rivalry with Harbaugh. Raider Nation may have picked up on the fact that he was serious.
It goes without saying that this game matters a lot for the battle in the AFC West, but it is also amplified by the storylines surrounding these two coaches. The Raiders will need to bring their absolute best for Carroll to take down Harbaugh yet again.