The 49ers Interview Chris Banjo to be their Special Teams Coordinator

The 49ers just completed their second interview for their vacant special teams coordinator position.
Nov 27, 2022; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals safety Chris Banjo (31) against the Los Angeles Chargers at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Nov 27, 2022; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals safety Chris Banjo (31) against the Los Angeles Chargers at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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The 49ers just completed their second interview for their vacant special teams coordinator position.

Denver Broncos assistant special teams coach and former NFL safety Chris Banjo wrapped up his interview with the 49ers on Monday. In addition to Banjo, Detroit Lions assistant special teams coordinator Jett Modkins interviewed with the 49ers last week. The 49ers are being thorough.

Banjo just completed his second season as an NFL assistant coach -- he was an NFL safety and special teams player from 2013 to 2022. And he got hired as an assistant coach by Sean Payton who has the highest standards, so it makes sense that the 49ers would be interested.

In addition, Banjo played for the Arizona Cardinals from 2019 to 2022, so the 49ers faced him two times a season for four years. They should know him well.

Hiring someone young and energetic seems like a good idea considering the 49ers coaching staff lacked life this past season. Simply moving failed defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen over to special teams coordinator wouldn't be an inpsiring move. And that's what Kyle Shanahan says he hopes to do if Sorensen accepts the demotion.

Hopefully for the 49ers, Sorensen refuses to coach special teams and they hire either Banjo or Modkins. Because Sorensen needs to leave and start over elsewhere. Keeping him around would be a bad look. It would seem as though Shanahan was giving special treatment to a friend after banishing Steve Wilks the year before.

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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.