49ers Intend to Promote Mike McDaniel to Offensive Coordinator

This promotion is ceremonial.

The 49ers just lost their passing game coordinator, Mike LaFleur. But it looks like they'll keep their running game coordinator, Mike McDaniel.

LaFleur took a promotion to become the New York Jets offensive coordinator -- he will run the entire offense and call plays under newly-hired head coach Robert Saleh.

McDaniel is in line for a promotion as well, and the 49ers intend to give him one by making him their offensive coordinator, according to NBC Bay Area. The promotion is not yet official, meaning McDaniel has not yet accepted it, presumably.

This promotion would be ceremonial. McDaniel would not call plays -- Shanahan still would. Instead, McDaniel would get a new title and probably more money. Which is why he might prefer to become the Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator. In Miami, he would call plays and run the show just as LaFleur will in New York. And McDaniel currently is a candidate for the Dolphins offensive coordinator job. But he doesn't seem like the leading candidate, which may be why he'll accept the 49ers' offer.

McDaniel, 37, has coached with Kyle Shanahan since 2006, with a two-year hiatus from 2009 to 2010 when McDaniel coached in the United Football League. Other than those two seasons, McDaniel has followed Shanahan everywhere he has gone. He is Shanahan's secret weapon. If Shanahan is Captain Kirk, McDaniel is Spock.

For the past four seasons, McDaniel has been the architect of the most intricate, advanced and aesthetically-pleasing run game in the NFL. Keeping him would be fantastic for the 49ers.

Stay tuned. The 49ers may announce McDaniel's promotion soon.


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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.