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Why the 49ers' Search for a Defensive Coordinator is Taking So Long

Waiting this long suggests the 49ers want to hire someone from outside the organization.
Grant Cohn|
Why the 49ers' Search for a Defensive Coordinator is Taking So Long
Why the 49ers' Search for a Defensive Coordinator is Taking So Long

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San Francisco 49ers

What are the 49ers waiting for?

The NFL Scouting Combine starts this Thursday and they still don't have a defensive coordinator. You'd think they'd like to name one before that event so they know what scheme they'll be running on defense and which players fit it.

If the 49ers are going to promote someone from within the coaching staff, you'd think they would have done so by now. The season ended more than two weeks ago. When they promoted DeMeco Ryans from linebackers coach to defensive coordinator in 2021, they promoted him 15 days after their final game of the season.

Waiting this long suggests the 49ers want to hire someone from outside the organization as they did last year when they hired Steve Wilks. In retrospect, it seems Wilks was doomed from the start, because the 49ers didn't let him bring any of his own position coaches or run his own defensive scheme. But I'm guessing the 49ers don't believe they set him up for failure. I'm guessing they believe they set him up for success with premium talent and he fell short of expectations.

So I wouldn't be surprised if the 49ers are actively offering potential defensive coordinators the Steve Wilks Package, which is the opportunity to move to Northern California and coach an aging defense that doesn't want to be coached while running someone else's scheme and calling plays from the sideline while Kyle Shanahan looks over your shoulder and second-guesses your play calls and eventually scapegoats you if the team doesn't win the Super Bowl or takes even the slightest step back defensively.

No wonder the 49ers haven't hired a defensive coordinator yet.

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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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