Robert Saleh plans to revive the 49ers defense in his 2nd stint as coordinator

By Canadian Press on May 8, 2025.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Robert Saleh once again is tasked with reviving the San Francisco defense following a rough season when the Niners struggled to slow down opposing offenses.

The main difference this time when Saleh returns for a second stint as Niners defensive coordinator following an unsuccessful run as head coach of the New York Jets is the talent that he inherits.

Instead of building a defense up nearly from scratch as he did in his first tenure, Saleh inherits a unit that features a former Defensive Player of the Year in edge rusher Nick Bosa, four-time All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner and versatile defensive back Deommodore Lenoir.

“There’s a lot of really good talent on this defense,” Saleh said Thursday. “So it’s not nearly as what ’17 was.”

Saleh was hired as head coach Kyle Shanahan’s first defensive coordinator in 2017 and struggled the first two seasons. But after the team drafted Bosa in 2019 and implemented the “wide nine” scheme that featured edge rushers lining up wide and focusing on getting up field, the defense took off.

San Francisco went to the Super Bowl in the 2019 season and still had a strong season the following season when Bosa missed almost the entire year with a knee injury, leading to Saleh getting the head coaching job with the Jets.

Saleh was fired midway through this past season in New York, but the Jets had a strong defense under his tenure. During Saleh’s last two full seasons with the Jets in 2022-23, New York ranked first in yards passing allowed per game (178.9) and yards per play allowed (4.7), and second in total defense (301.7 yards per game).

“Obviously, I’ve gone through the head coaching stuff and you learn a lot going through that,” Saleh said. “But I’m happy to be back in this chair where I get to coach a little bit more football and not deal with all the administrative stuff that comes with being a head coach.”

Saleh said he never considered taking a year off when he didn’t get another shot at being a head coach and returning to the 49ers was his first choice as a coordinator.

Saleh had high praise for the way Shanahan and general manager John Lynch run the organization and appreciates the loyalty they showed early in his first time as coordinator.

“If you think about those first two years as D-coordinator in ’17 and ’18, it wasn’t easy,” he said. “It could have been very easy for them to move on from me. I’m indebted to this organization, to those men for the rest of my life. They stuck with me and we made it happen. We did what we needed to do, and the rest is history. I’m excited about the opportunity to get the chance to do it again with them.”

Saleh said his defensive system has evolved since he left San Francisco as he tries to stay ahead of whatever offenses are doing around the NFL.

He plans to bring in those new elements along with some of the successful changes that the Niners have undergone to create a new defense. He also will have to incorporate in several rookies who could be key contributors to fill several holes created earlier this offseason.

“Some things are the same, some things are the same from the Jets, some things are meshed, some things are coming in that are new,” he said. “We’re trying to stay a couple years ahead. A lot of it may seem similar, but there’s a lot of nuance that makes a difference.”

Saleh will be the fourth defensive coordinator in four seasons for San Francisco. DeMeco Ryans, who replaced Saleh in 2021, left to become head coach in Houston following the 2022 season, and Steve Wilks and Nick Sorensen were each replaced after one season the past two years.

The 49ers regressed this season under Sorensen as the injury-filled unit struggled to create turnovers, stop the run and create consistent pressure on the quarterback.

San Francisco ranked 29th in the league in scoring defense, allowing 25.6 points per game, and was tied for the seventh-fewest takeaways with 17. The Niners had just two takeaways over the final nine games and ended the season allowing at least 40 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 2015.

“There’s a lot of empathy for what happened to the group last year,” Saleh said. “There was a lot of things that, through the halfway point, this defense was playing some really good football and there were a lot of injuries and the wheels kind of fell off during the last four weeks of the season.”

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Josh Dubow, The Associated Press