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Will Robert Saleh be One and Done in 2nd Stint as 49ers D-Coordinator?

Don't take Saleh for granted.
Grant Cohn|
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh (left) greets San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (right) after the game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh (left) greets San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (right) after the game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The good news: Robert Saleh is back as the 49ers defensive coordinator.

The bad news: He might not stick around past the upcoming season.

Saleh is one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL -- he will make the 49ers defense better even though it just lost six starters. He's that good.

He's so good, that the 49ers are going to give him a bunch of rookies in a couple weeks, and some of those rookies will be expected to start.

If Saleh's defense struggles, no one will blame him because he'll have so many rookies on the field. But if his defense does well, he most likely will be a hot head-coaching candidate once again next offseason.

The 49ers aren't necessarily Super Bowl contenders right now. They're going through a recalibration year, which means they're taking on lots of dead salary cap penalties so they can spend more money in the future. Ideally, they'd like to keep Saleh around for a few years so he's here when the next Super Bowl window opens.

But the 49ers might not be so lucky. All he needs is one good season with a young unit that lacks top-end talent and he could be gone.

Which means the 49ers can't take this season for granted. It might be the last season they have with Saleh. If they get off to a good start, they should make a trade and go all-in as they did in 2019 when they traded for Emmanuel Sanders at the deadline.

Don't take Saleh for granted.

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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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