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49ers DC Robert Saleh Ranked NFL's Sixth-Best Defensive Coordinator

The 49ers' biggest addition of the offseason wasn't a player. It was defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.
Grant Cohn|
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh speaks to the media following a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh speaks to the media following a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers' biggest addition of the offseason wasn't a player. It was defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.

Sure, they also traded for Bryce Huff. But Huff is valuable only because Saleh knows how to use him. Under Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio last season, Huff was a huge flop. And Fangio is the best defensive coordinator in the NFL.

But Saleh is no slouch. In fact, Pro Football Network ranks him the sixth-best defensive coordinator in the league entering the 2025 season.

"Ranking Robert Saleh this high comes with an asterisk, given that he’s returning to the defensive coordinator ranks after being fired as New York’s head coach last year," writes PFN's Jacob Infante. "That said, he remains a top defensive mind in the NFL.

"Saleh’s Jets ranked inside the top five in Defense+ in both 2022 and 2023. Before then, his defenses with the San Francisco 49ers played a significant role in their development into an NFC superpower. Now back in his old role as their DC, expect an improvement from a 49ers defense that placed just 26th in Defense+ last year."

PFN ranks Saleh behind Fangio, Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo, Vikings DC Brian Flores, Broncos DC Vance Joseph and Chargers DC Jesse Minter. These are the best of the best. And if Saleh has a good season in 2025, he could climb the list all the way to No. 3 behind Fangio and Spagnuolo. Because Joseph and Minter have not accomplished more than Saleh in the NFL.

Thank goodness the 49ers got their defensive coordinator back.

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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.

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