Kyle Shanahan Provides Insight on 49ers' Defensive Coordinator Search
The offseason has just begun for the San Francisco 49ers and they already have a crucial decision to make. That decision is the hiring of a new defensive coordinator.
DeMeco Ryans is now the head coach of the Houston Texans. Finding his replacement, an adequate one at that, is going to be a real challenge for the 49ers. The work he had done in his two seasons at his position was phenomenal. He took an already elite defense and transcended it. Whoever the 49ers end up hiring will have tremendous pressure on them, but it is still curious to hear where they are at with it.
Kyle Shanahan provided insight on the 49ers' defensive coordinator search at his exit press conference on Wednesday.
“I’m in the middle of it," said Shanahan. "I love our defensive staff, I love our defense. I’m trying to get something where we don't have to turn much over. I would love to keep our same staff, so I'm going to talk to some guys on our staff. I'm going to talk to some guys outside of our staff and hopefully whichever way we decide to go, whether we bring in a new guy or not, that it's someone who can work with who we have and what we've accomplished here because I love the scheme that we run and I feel the foundation we have on the D-line, at linebacker, at corner, at safety, I think our players fit very well in it too, so I’m hoping to find someone who fits with us personality-wise and scheme wise.”
Careful consideration will be the wise approach here from the 49ers. The defense since 2019 has largely carried the team to success on all three of their playoff runs. Whoever they hire must be able to maintain a relative level of success and dominance that previous coordinators like Ryans and Robert Saleh managed to do. Otherwise, responsibility of carrying the team will rely upon Shanahan and his offense. Considering the injured state of both quarterbacks in Trey Lance and Brock Purdy, the 49ers will likely need a strong defense yet again.
A few candidates have already been reported on who the 49ers are taking a look at. Former Broncos head coach Vic Fangio is one, former Panthers interim head coach Steve Wilks is another, and former Commanders defensive backs coach Chris Harris rounds it out. Fangio is the most popular and successful name of the bunch. It is just curious on how he would structure the 49ers defense with his 3-4 base scheme. Shanahan wants as little tinkering as possible with his defense since it has sustained the same form for years with continued success.
But it would be kind of difficult for any new defensive coordinator to mess up this defense given the superb talent throughout. I would expect the 49ers to come to a decision in the next week.
