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Nick Wagoner
Santa Clara, California – While Robert Saleh faced a career uncertainty for the first time for some time during the offseason, he knew something for sure: if he had to be a defensive coordinator, he wanted to do it with the 49ers of San Francisco.
After the Niners separated from the coordinator Nick Sorensen in January, the team quickly locked himself on the hiring of Saleh. And, except another chief coaching opportunity, Saleh had a similar idea in mind. When Saleh did not win the post of Jacksonville Jaguars chief, he returned to the 49ers on January 25, finding coach Kyle Shanahan and the franchise which gave him his first opportunity as coordinator.
Addressing Bay Area Media for the first time since his return Thursday, Saleh said that his loyalty to the Niners is the product not only of the chance that they initially provided him in 2017, but also in the way they stuck him when his first two years as coordinator did not go well.
“I have a lot of respect for this organization,” said Saleh. “If you think of these first two years as a coordinator in ’17 and ’18, it was not easy, and it could have been very easy for them to move on.
Indeed, long before the New York Jets brought Saleh as head coach, he had been planted firmly on the San Francisco hot seat. As a defensive coordinator for the first time at the first stadiums of a franchise overhaul, the first two defenses of Saleh finished the 25th and 28th of points authorized in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
But Shanahan stood near Saleh, noting that the defense had to continue to add talents. By 2019, this unit had a formidable line with deforest Buckner and Arik Armstead plated and finished Nick Bosa and Dee Ford. The Niners had Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw in the secondary with the veteran corner Richard Sherman leading the secondary.
This season, the defense has become the backbone of a team that has gone to the Super Bowl Liv. Saleh’s defense ended in the first eight of the NFL in the authorized points, authorized yards, take -out dishes, added defensive points, rogates per authorized game and rings per match per match authorized, among other categories.
After the 2020 season, Saleh went to the jets, where he compiled a record of 20-36 before his dismissal in October. Now Saleh returns to San Francisco in the hope that he can return a formerly proud defense to domination.
San Francisco granted 25.6 points per match (29th in the NFL), had a defensive EPA of -57.71 (26th) and found that 17 reversals were forced (on equal to the 20th) in 2024. During the last three games, the Niners have on average 38.7 points and 404.3 yards authorized without a tape.
Although Saleh is always based on many defensive SEATtle and slogans’ style principles from his previous visit to San Francisco (he wore a black bracelet with “All Gas, no brake” in white letters on Thursday), he said that the defense had evolved from the moment he was the last in red and gold.
“You are still trying to stay two years before the attack,” said Saleh. “When we went to the jets, there were a lot of different things that we started to do, and even now, although we have things from the jets, there have been things that have evolved in the past four years here, and obviously with the League, things are happening.
“During this offseason, a lot of really cool concepts, a lot of really cool things. Some things are the same, some things are the same jets, some things are meshed, some things happen that are new. … A large part may seem similar, but there are a lot of nuances that make a difference.”
As Saleh recognized on Thursday, a large part of his challenge in 2025 will bring young defenders that the Niners will have to rely at the start of their career. Greenlaw, the Cornerback Charvarius Ward, the defensive plated Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins, the end of Leonard Floyd and the Talalanoa Hufanga security left for the free agency.
Warner, Bosa and the defensive platform Kevin Givens are the only 49ers defenders still on the list of the previous turning point in Saleh as a coordinator. And the Niners have used their first five choices in the draft on defensive players for the first time since 1981, adding Mykel Williams, addresses Alfred Collins and CJ West, the second Nick Martin and the Cornerback Upton Stout.
Several of these recruits should start, or at least play immediately. They will start this process this weekend while the Niners will hold their mini recruit.
“(It’s) a group of really cool children arriving,” said Saleh. “All will have the opportunity to compete to get an important playing time this year. But it is exciting to obtain an injection of young people to accompany a lot of veterans that we have in this football team. … It will be fun to work.”
At this stage of the off-season program, Saleh did not have the opportunity to do much on the field with one of his defensive players. This will occur early when the team starts the activities of the team organized at the end of the month.
From then on, Saleh will be able to match Wits again with Shanahan and the new attacking coordinator Klay Kubiak.
“He obviously has a lot of experience, a very good defensive coach,” said Kubiak. “We did not make a ton of simply sitting to talk about X and O, but of course, looking at the defense jets of the last two years against them, just a ton of respect for their plan and how hard these guys play. And therefore, it will be fun against these guys in the training camp and during the offseason.”
As for Saleh of new head coach, Shanahan previously noted that he understood that it will always be a possibility and that if another opportunity arises, it will probably mean that good things happen for the 49ers.
In the last months of last season, Saleh worked as a consultant for the coach of Green Bay Packers Matt Lafleur, one of his friends closest to the company. Saleh called this “therapeutic” time because it allowed him to avoid spending time lingering on what happened in New York.
However, Saleh could have taken a year from football if he wanted to recharge the battery. As taking a different coordinator work, it was not really an option.
“We are usually creatures,” said Saleh. “It sounds well (for) to wake up every morning, take my children to school, go to golf and then go watch adhesive tape. But ball training has always been option.”
