Kyle Shanahan brought back Robert Saleh, kept Klay Kubiak, and added Brant Boyer. That coordinator glow-up makes the 49ers the No. 3 coaching staff in the league — according to ESPN, anyway.
The San Francisco 49ers are always good for a debate — quarterback drama, playoff odds, take your pick. One thing we can agree upon is that the coaching staff got better. Way better.
ESPN has been up and down on their various rankings; we’re still making fun of their Brock Purdy “snub” from a few weeks back. This week, Ben Solak ranked the coaching staff in the NFL. He put Kyle Shanahan’s staff at No. 3 behind only the (surprise, surprise) Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings at second and first, respectively.
The 49ers had a weird defensive coaching arrangement last season. Nick Sorensen, who had alternated between coordinating special teams and coaching defensive backs in his career, was the titular defensive coordinator. But assistant head coach Brandon Staley had a heavy hand in introducing new fronts and coverages to the tried-and-true Legion of Boom-inspired defense the 49ers had run successfully for years.
The blend never took. Sorensen and Staley are with different teams now, as the 49ers sprinted back to the warm embrace of Saleh and the Pete Carroll system. Saleh is an exemplary defensive coach who has tailored his approach around both his personnel and the unique matchups of opposing offenses across his time in San Francisco and New York. In his 2½ seasons with the Jets, they ranked first in points per drive, first in EPA per play and third in defensive success rate. He has the juice. The 49ers’ defense is on my short list for “units about to take a massive leap in 2025.”
Here’s another reason for coaching staff optimism in San Francisco: It kept an offensive assistant this year! For 2025, Klay Kubiak was promoted to coordinator after a season as passing game specialist. But it’s not the title bump that matters, it’s the fact he’s still in the building. The constant trickle of key offensive assistants leaving for bigger jobs — Klint Kubiak, Bobby Slowik, Mike McDaniel — hurts a staff’s ability to grow year over year.
For all his offensive acumen, Shanahan is not perfect — he still has plenty of room to grow as a game manager. But that offensive system sure is something, isn’t it?
I think “weird” doesn’t begin to describe the last couple of coordinators. It’s admirable that Shanahan tried to get things to work outside of the box with Steve Wilks, but it was clear something was very, very off. As Shanahan has said in interviews, it just didn’t work.
Nick Sorensen seemed like an obvious fit, but again, things looked off immediately. Sure, when DeMeco Ryans began his stint as 49ers defensive coordinator, he had his share of mistakes and miscues, but comparing Ryans’ early bumps to Sorensen’s is apples to oranges.
Just replacing Wilks and Sorensen with Saleh is enough to vault this group into the top three. The defense wasn’t bad, just uninspired and dysfunctional. Saleh has his criticisms, but he’s a significant step up from what fans have had to witness prior.
While he did mention holding onto Klay Kubiak, Solak didn’t mention the hire of Brant Boyer as special teams coach. The 49ers are at the point where anything different in that group can make a difference for the better. I’m not sure if Brant Boyer is an “upgrade” over predecessor Brian Schneider from an X’s and O’s perspective (we’ll undoubtedly see), but the fresh face has to make all the miscues a bit better.
Coaching aside, the 49ers’ retooled defensive line may make Saleh look all the better. In 2018, fans were done with Saleh, and then the 49ers got Nick Bosa in 2019, which turned everything around.
Where would you rank the 49ers coaching staff?