Sports

Westhoff: Ravens’ Harbaugh ‘special’

NEW ORLEANS — Every year when head coaching jobs become available in the NFL, you hear lists of the top offensive and defensive coordinators as candidates to fill them. Rarely do you hear about special teams coordinators.

Maybe that will change with John Harbaugh’s success with the Ravens. Harbaugh spent nine years as the Eagles special teams coordinator, then one season as defensive backs coach before the Ravens hired him.

Former Jets special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff said he hopes Harbaugh’s success opens some owners’ eyes.

“If you’re a good coach, you’re a good coach,” Westhoff said. “[With special teams] you deal with the whole team and I think that perspective is very important in the overall picture,” Westhoff said. “I think he exemplifies that very, very well. I think he sees the whole package, and he’s done a heck of a job. I do believe that will continue in the future.”

Westhoff said he presented Harbaugh with a special teams coaching award years ago and told him he would be a head coach someday. Westhoff, now retired, said he’s disappointed he was a head coach. He interviewed for the Jets job in 2009 when Rex Ryan was hired.

Harbaugh spoke this week about his special teams role preparing him for the top job.

“Special teams is a great place to start as a coach. It’s a great place to be,” he said. “I had an opportunity to work with every single player on the team. Players are different. Quarterbacks are different than defensive linemen. Defensive backs are different than offensive linemen. You do have an opportunity to work with all those different diverse groups every single day, working on football and meetings and all those different things, which is a great training ground for the job that I’m doing right now.”

* Is this the year a running back wins the Super Bowl MVP award?

It has happened seven times in 46 previous Super Bowls and hasn’t happened since 1998, when Terrell Davis won it with the Broncos.

There are two high-profile backs in this game — Frank Gore for the 49ers, Ray Rice for the Ravens — but it always is difficult to wrest the award from quarterbacks, who have won it 25 times.

“The league has changed and a lot of guys love throwing the ball,’’ Gore said. “Everyone wants the quarterback to be the MVP. There is a chance for me because they have to respect [Colin] Kaepernick.For Ray Rice, he can do everything in their offense.He can catch and run so he has a chance too.”

* Two Giants players, Ahmad Bradshaw and Rueben Randle, signed autographs yesterday for about 90 minutes at the NFL Experience.

Randle, coming off his rookie season, was a fan favorite from his days at LSU and was recognized more often than Bradshaw, a six-year NFL veteran.

* This is the 10th Super Bowl to be played in the Superdome but the first in 11 years. It’s also the first time the league has been back here since the building was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

* Kaepernick spent more time this week speaking about tattoos than any other quarterback in Super Bowl history. His arms are filled with them, from shoulder to wrist.

“My favorite tattoo is the one inside my bicep,’’ he said. “It says, ‘My gift is my curse.’ There are a lot of different meanings to it. One that applies right here is, I can make a lot of great things being an NFL quarterback and a lot of great perks. At the same time, there are a lot of things you can’t do as an NFL quarterback that you could do if you were just walking around and had a regular job.”

* There is a 2012 Jet in the Super Bowl.

Linebacker D.J. Bryant is a member of the Ravens practice squad and is with the team this week. He spent about a month on the Jets’ practice squad this year before the team released him in December. The Ravens signed him a short time later, released him and then signed him again.

paul.schwartz@nypost.com