San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan is considered to be one of the brightest young offensive minds in football. He knows a good defense when he sees one because he spends most of his time figuring out how to attack them. So when Shanahan says he believes in the 49ers' defensive scheme, it carries a lot of weight.
Shanahan also believes in the man he brought in to install and develop the defense — Robert Saleh. The head coach was recently a guest on the "TK Show," a podcast hosted by Tim Kawakami of The Athletic. During the conversation, Shanahan expressed his wholehearted support of the defensive coordinator, who has recently come under the fire of fans due to the defense's regression this season.
"I'm not worried about Saleh," Shanahan told Kawakami. "I've been around a lot of coaches, I've been coaching in this league for a while, and Saleh knows what he's doing. He knows our scheme inside and out as good as anyone. There's a number of people who run our scheme in the league, and I go against all those schemes, and I know what Saleh's done to change it and improve it.
"I believe it's a much harder one to go [against]. I feel like there's other things to it that he's expanded and he's a guy that, I think, our fans give him the time, I know I will, our players who work very hard for him, Saleh's a guy we should feel fortunate to have. We will be good with Saleh.
"We need to improve a lot. We'll improve our coaching. We'll improve our players. But just because we're facing some adversity, and every time someone misses a tackle or every time there's a busted coverage, that's not a reason for me to think all of a sudden a guy doesn't know what he's doing."
Kawakami asked Shanahan if Saleh will return as his defensive coordinator in 2019.
"I'm not going to make any comments like that but if that's going to get blown up, I think I just said I believe in Saleh a lot," Shanahan responded. "For him not to be here would be a huge surprise to me."
During the conversation, Shanahan also discussed the initial plan to build the team in preparation for signing quarterback Kirk Cousins, Jimmy Garoppolo changing that plan, and much more.
Click here to listen to the entire interview.
