Jim Harbaugh experienced an irregular heartbeat and briefly left a game earlier this season.
Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh will undergo a pair of procedures this offseason, including one on his heart after he dealt with an atrial flutter during a game a few months ago.
Harbaugh will have a cardiac ablation and a hip replacement this offseason, he said Wednesday after the Chargers were eliminated from the playoffs, via ESPN’s Kris Rhim. It’s unknown when exactly he will have either procedure.
The 61-year-old coach, fresh off his first season back in the NFL, has been walking with a significant limp that should be corrected by the surgery. It’s unclear if anything specific happened to cause Harbaugh’s hip injury, but he looked like he was really struggling to move during his team’s loss to the Houston Texans on Saturday.
As for his heart, Harbaugh briefly left the team’s game against the Denver Broncos in October. He was spotted walking into the blue medical tent before leaving for the locker room due to an atrial flutter, a type of arrhythmia. He was treated by paramedics there and then returned to the game.
Harbaugh said he has experienced that twice before, first in 1999 and again ahead of a game in 2012 when he was with the San Francisco 49ers. He wore a heart monitor for a few weeks and underwent treatment. Harbaugh will now undergo an ablation procedure, which destroys the tissue that causes abnormal electrical signals in the heart. He underwent that procedure both other times he experienced an atrial flutter, too.
The Chargers went 11-6 this season, Harbaugh’s first back in the league after he led Michigan to a national championship the year before, and reached the playoffs for the second time in the past three years.
Although he is dealing with multiple health issues, Harbaugh should be ready to go in time for next season. And as he has said repeatedly, he’s not ready to retire just yet.
“It would take my heart stopping for me to not be out there on the sidelines,” he said in October.
