The San Francisco 49ers aren’t wasting any time getting their defensive coordinator interviews done.
On Thursday the team announced they completed two interviews for that position, including their former defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, and Detroit Lions defensive passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach Deshea Townsend.
Saleh might be the easiest hire for the 49ers to make given his track record while he was with them from 2017-20. He helped build San Francisco’s defense into one of the NFL’s best units during his tenure. They struggled out of the gate in 2017 and 2018 while they were still establishing personnel on that side of the ball, but in 2019 they finished No. 2 in yards allowed and No. 8 in points allowed. Then in 2020 they finished No. 5 in yards and No. 17 in points despite a rash of injuries on both sides of the ball that turned the campaign into a lost season.
The New York Jets hired Saleh as their head coach in 2021, then fired him just five games into this season after New York’s 2-3 start in 2024. With the Jets he went 20-36 as the head coach.
Townsend is a really interesting name, and members of the Lions coaching staff may quickly become hot commodities around the NFL. He spent 13 seasons in the NFL as a defensive back with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts, then quickly turned to coaching when he was hired as the Arizona Cardinals assistant defensive backs coach the year after his final NFL season.
From that point until 2022 he was either an assistant DBs coach or secondary coach of some kind with the Cardinals, Mississippi State, Tennessee Titans, New York Giants and Chicago Bears.
In 2022 the Jacksonville Jaguars hired him to be their passing game coordinator and cornerbacks coach. He held that spot for two years before joining Dan Campbell’s staff in Detroit.
The 49ers tried hiring a DC with a background in the secondary with Steve Wilks, but that only lasted one season in part because of some issues with the all-important front seven on San Francisco’s defense. If Townsend is going to be the hire, it may signal a philosophical shift in how the 49ers are approaching that side of the ball.
While these are the first two interviews, they’re not expected to be the last. Head coach Kyle Shanahan said assistant head coach Brandon Staley will get an interview, and there could be more candidates outside of that group getting interviews coming up.