Robert Saleh is back as defensive coordinator of the 49ers, and all is right with the world.
For now, anyway.
Coach Kyle Shanahan has cycled through DeMeco Ryans, Steve Wilks and Nick Sorensen after Saleh’s departure following the 2020 season to become head coach of the New York Jets. Saleh, 20-36 with the Jets, will be the 49ers’ fourth coordinator in four years to run their defense after agreeing to rejoin Shanahan when head coaching opportunities didn’t materialize.
Although the salaries of coaches can’t be found on a website, it’s reportedly for big bucks too — indicating he’ll be around for more than one year unless he gets another head coaching shot in 2026.
The images remain of Saleh and his shaved head moving enthusiastically along the 49ers’ sideline, becoming a target for television cameramen eager for a good shot. Or of Saleh running the stairs before games at Levi’s Stadium, working off nervous energy while pondering all matter of in-game strategy.
Who knows? If the 49ers can get maximum performance from Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, another step up from cornerback Deommodore Lenoir and steady improvement from safety Malik Mustapha, those are some impressive core players to rebuild a defense that faltered as the 49ers went 6-11 in 2024.
Yet it’s worth remembering that the 49ers, other than 2019, weren’t an overly impressive defensive team with Saleh. There was plenty of anti-Saleh sentiment among the fan base in the down years (2017-18 and 2020), which isn’t unusual when it comes to defensive coordinators.
Robert Saleh (left) wasn’t shy about displaying emotion during his tenure as 49ers defensive coordinator from 2017-20. Randy Vazquez/Bay Area News Group
Anyone with access to All-22 or who plays Madden had an opinion. They blitz too much. They don’t blitz enough. They miss too many tackles and don’t create enough turnovers. Sorensen was judged guilty as charged for just about everything in his first year as a coordinator. It all added up to a one-and-done tenure after following the scapegoating of Wilks.
Ryans escaped the micro-scrutiny with the 49ers making the NFC Championship Game in back-to-back seasons. Wilks, who never seemed to be on the same page with Shanahan and ran a defense that held a Pat Mahomes offense to a single touchdown before overtime in Super Bowl LVIII, did not.
So after Shanahan said he was open to new ideas defensively going into the 2025 season at his season-ending press conference once Sorensen was dismissed, he instead reverted to something familiar. A system he believes in. A coach he believes in.
The truth about Saleh and every other defensive coordinator is they’re as good as the players they can deploy.
The Saleh who ran a defense with Solomon Thomas at defensive tackle and Reuben Foster at linebacker wasn’t nearly as good as the one who got Warner as a third-round draft pick in 2018 and Bosa as the second pick in the draft the following year. Saleh got a lot smarter when the 49ers brought aboard Richard Sherman as a free agent to stabilize the secondary. They meshed nicely with DeForest Buckner, who arrived the year before Saleh was hired, and Arik Armstead two years earlier.
Saleh helped forge the 2019 49ers into a top-level defense with 48 sacks until things broke down in Super Bowl LIV in Miami, and catastrophic injuries (including Bosa and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo) did little to inhibit his candidacy as a head coach when the New York Jets came calling in 2020.
It wasn’t Saleh’s call to trade Buckner and then draft Javon Kinlaw in 2020. It also wasn’t Saleh who was responsible for finding Dre Greenlaw with a fifth-round pick the same year the 49ers drafted Bosa.
Saleh is a leader, charismatic and colorful. But let’s not pretend defensive coordinators were the biggest reason the 49ers fell short the last two seasons under Wilks and Sorensen. Wilks was an outsider Shanahan never felt comfortable with. The feeling here is if the 49ers hadn’t collapsed against the run and been buried in road games in Green Bay and Buffalo, Sorensen would still be running the defense.
Saleh may bring in some new tricks and he’ll definitely have new frontline players — only Bosa and Warner remain from his last season with the 49ers, with Greenlaw as a wild card because of impending free agency. Still around from the 2020 defensive staff are defensive line coach Kris Kocurek and secondary coach Daniel Bullocks.
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But Saleh will largely be the coach Shanahan expects, and the 49ers’ head coach is looking backward to 2019 more than forward to 2025 in terms of what he wants to see.
There’s nothing wrong with that as long as the star players play like star players and if Shanahan, general manager John Lynch and the personnel department can upgrade the talent around Bosa and Warner the same way the offense must do with talent around Brock Purdy.
Otherwise, fair or not, Saleh will hear the discontent of the fan base just like Wilks and Sorensen, and there’s no amount of running the stairs or fist-pumping that will make up for it.
