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The 49ers Reportedly are Considering Hiring Pete Carroll as their DC

Carroll would be a good fit for the 49ers in the sense that he's a true leader of men who brings energy and enthusiasm that Kyle Shanahan does not provide.
Grant Cohn|
Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll watches his team play against the Arizona Cardinals during the third quarter at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on Jan. 7, 2024.
Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll watches his team play against the Arizona Cardinals during the third quarter at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on Jan. 7, 2024. | Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

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San Francisco 49ers

This is getting ridiculous.

The 49ers keep missing out on the top defensive coordinator candidates on the market as they wait for Robert Saleh, who seems to be the leading candidate to become the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach.

Which means the 49ers might need to scramble to find a second option. And according to Tim Kawakami of The SF Standard, that backup option could be former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.

"I've heard that Carroll's name has come up inside 49ers HQ as an interesting idea, at least," writes Kawakami. "But the 49ers also have to wait out things with Carroll, who, according to The Athletic, could be the Raiders' No. 1 choice now that Ben Johnson has taken the Chicago Bears' job."

The Raiders are interested in Carroll because only desperate coaches with no options even would consider coaching for them. Which makes you wonder how desirable the 49ers' defensive coordinator position really is.

Carroll would be a good fit for the 49ers in the sense that he's a true leader of men who brings energy and enthusiasm that Kyle Shanahan does not provide his players. Even at 73 years old, Carroll is much more energetic than Shanahan.

But Carroll hasn't had a top 10 defense since 2016. His last five seasons in Seattle, his defenses were horrible. The league has caught up to his three-deep-zone scheme -- it's outdated. Almost no one runs it anymore.

Surely, the 49ers can find someone better, right?

Right?

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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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