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Why DeMeco Ryans Should be a Top Head Coach Candidate This Offseason

Ryans should be a top head coach candidate among NFL teams this offseason, despite just one season of experience as a defensive coordinator.
Grant Cohn|
Why DeMeco Ryans Should be a Top Head Coach Candidate This Offseason
Why DeMeco Ryans Should be a Top Head Coach Candidate This Offseason

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers are a defensive-minded head-coaching factory.

Last offseason, their defensive coordinator, Robert Saleh, became a head coach. And the same thing could happen this offseason to their current defensive coordinator, DeMeco Ryans

Ryans should be a top head coach candidate among NFL teams this offseason, despite just one season of experience as a defensive coordinator. If that seems like a stretch, compare him to the head coach the 49ers will face this Thursday night -- Mike Vrabel, whose win-loss record is 38-24 in four seasons with the Titans.

Vrabel played linebacker in the NFL for 14 seasons, eight of which he played for Bill Belichick on the New England Patriots. So Vrabel has pedigree. He was the quarterback of Belichick's defense. And he was a good player. He went to a Pro Bowl.

In 2014, Vrabel became the Houston Texans' linebackers coach, a position he held for three seasons until they promoted him to defensive coordinator in 2017. That season, the Texans defense ranked 20th out of 32 teams in yards allowed, and 32nd out of 32 teams in points allowed -- their defense wasn't good, and their team went 4-12. And yet, Vrabel showed enough in that one season for the Titans to hire him as their head coach in 2018. And they clearly made the right decision.

Ryans is extremely similar to Vrabel. Ryans played in the NFL for 10 seasons, went to two Pro Bowls and played for Wade Phillips and Todd Bowles. So Ryans has pedigree, too.

In 2018, Ryans became the 49ers' linebackers coach, a position he held for three seasons until they promoted him to defensive coordiantor in 2021. This season, the 49ers defense ranks 6th in yards allowed and 19th in points allowed.

And that means Ryans' resume is as good or better than Vrabel's was before he became a head coach. We'll see which team is smart enough to identify Ryans as the extraordinary talent he is.

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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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