Waiting for Robert Saleh Could Cost the 49ers a Quality DC Hire

It will be interesting to see how patient the 49ers will be. The longer they wait, perhaps the more confident they are they eventually will land Saleh.
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan (left) and New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh (right) talk before the game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan (left) and New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh (right) talk before the game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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It's probably safe to say that Robert Saleh is the 49ers' top choice to be their defensive coordinator.

It's also probably fair to assume that the 49ers are high on Saleh's list of preferred destinations. But he also has interviewed for two head coaching vacancies -- one with the Jaguars and one with the Raiders. And anyone would rather be a head coach than a coordinator.

So the 49ers are waiting for Saleh to make a decision. And Saleh is waiting for the Raiders and Jaguars to make decisions. And they're probably waiting to interview certain coordinators whose teams are still playing in the playoffs. The Raiders in particular are reported to be heavily interested in Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.

Which means the 49ers' defensive coordinator search could take longer than expected. And if they wait weeks for Saleh and he ultimately becomes the head coach of the Jaguars or the Raiders, then the 49ers could have missed out on other quality defensive coordinator candidates such as Dennis Allen and Lou Anarumo.

I'm guessing Saleh ultimately will re-join the 49ers as their defensive coordinator. But if he doesn't, the 49ers might not have a viable second option and they could be stuck promoting Brandon Staley from assistant head coach to defensive coordinator. That would be a disaster.

It will be interesting to see how patient the 49ers will be. The longer they wait, perhaps the more confident they are they eventually will land Saleh.

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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.