Oh, the way the drama in the NFL seems to evolve, pro football fans might almost believe the entire season is scripted. While perhaps scripted is a stretch, it is most certainly entertaining in between the games.
On Tuesday morning, the New York Jets fired their head coach, Robert Saleh, after that team turned in yet another underwhelming performance and dropped to 2-3. It was no secret that Saleh, the 49ers' former defensive coordinator, was on the hot seat after launching into the Jets' fourth straight year of mediocrity. But the timing was unexpected and given that the team's struggles mostly related to the Aaron Rodgers-led offense, it seemed Saleh might last out, at least until the end of the season.
Saleh had barely made it to the parking lot at the Jets' facility with his cardboard box of belongings before 49ers' fan-based social media erupted with the possibility of Saleh making a return to the home of his greatest career successes: San Francisco.
Had the 49ers been sitting comfortably at 5-0 and leading the NFC West on Tuesday morning, there likely would have been little more than good wishes sent Saleh's way. But with the 49ers at 2-3, having dropped two key games to weaker division rivals because of, at least ostensibly, an inconsistent and anemic defense, Saleh's name has today landed front and center.
Just five games into his stint as the 49ers' defensive coordinator, Nick Sorensen is still getting used to his new duties after his promotion from defensive assistant. Thus far, the reviews haven't been sterling, and the 49ers' defense has over the first five weeks of the season looked like the clumsy little brother that holds the Brock Purdy-driven offense back from winning games. Sorensen had already taken flack for the defense's early season stumbling in San Francisco, but with the Saleh firing in New York, 49er fans are suddenly reminded of the elite defense the team once had, and the flack has intensified into full-blown artillery shelling.
Few if any remarks have emerged from the 49ers' front office over the Jets and Saleh breakup, and chances are better than good that "keep the status quo" will be the team's official mantra, at least for the time being. But it's silly to think that, at least behind closed doors, some team officials aren't having some one-on-one conversations on what this means, if anything, for San Francisco.
Promoted to replace the embattled Steve Wilks, who rightly or wrongly ended up being the scapegoat for another missed Super Bowl win opportunity, Sorensen was the best candidate willing and available in February of this year and he got the call. But as always, the landscape of the NFL changes rapidly, and handing the car keys to the 49ers' defense over to Sorensen seems a shade less reasonable now than it did just eight months ago. And not without good reason.
Sorensen has certainly not proven to be a bust after just five weeks of football—if for no other reason than he simply hasn't been given enough chance. But he's also done little to allay the growing fears that the 49ers' defense is playing well below their capability, and therein lies the problem. Instead of merely observing the Saleh sacking in New York as a friendly and sympathetic but mostly disinterested party, the 49ers as an organization must now at least complete due diligence in pondering their current defensive leadership, with an unexpected eye turned toward Saleh.
Of course, there's every chance Sorensen proves (as both Saleh and former 49ers' DC DeMeco Ryans did before him) that he deserves his role as manager of the 49ers' historically elite defense. And the 49ers' defense could tighten up over time. But circumstances have shifted considerably from those that both Saleh and Ryans faced, and Sorensen, managing within an ever-constricted Super Bowl window and overall performance expectations much higher than in previous years, must learn faster than his predecessors, and with a much smaller margin of error. Sorensen, whether General Manager John Lynch and Head Coach Kyle Shanahan wish to admit it or not, is on a figurative shot clock, and he doesn't have the luxury of time to figure things out.
In post-game remarks this week after the 49ers lost a matchup to Arizona, a game San Francisco had dominated for three quarters, defensive end Nick Bosa alluded to the team needing to be better at making second-half defensive adjustments. Bosa's remarks were mostly dismissed by Shanahan later, who suggested mid-game adjustments weren't to blame for the team's recent losses. Bosa's statements were not a slam on Sorensen, per se, but they were illuminating in that there seems to be clear disagreement as to whether adjustments are being handled properly mid-game, and that issue falls right into Sorensen's lap.
Could the 49ers make a mid-season switch at defensive coordinator? Theoretically yes, but it would be impossible to do on the fly logistically, and it's not something the 49ers would likely ever do in the real world. Beyond the fact that a changeup in unit management would take months to complete effectively, there's no information that Saleh would consider arching his career trajectory back to an assistant role, let alone to one on the West Coast.
It's true, the temptation to revive the 49ers' elite defense of 2019 is a powerful one. But it may be far easier imagined than actually done. Only four defensive players (Bosa, Dre Greenlaw, Fred Warner, and Kevin Givens) remain from the Super Bowl defensive unit Saleh oversaw five years ago, and there's no guarantee that sort of coach-player chemistry can be regenerated here in 2024, with a cadre of younger, less experienced players now on board. Add to that the fact bringing back personnel (whether a player or a coach) has not been a wildly successful move for teams in the NFL in general throughout the Super Bowl era, and the idea of a Saleh return seems even more questionable.
Sticky, too, is figuring out what actual role Saleh could potentially fulfill. With Defensive Assistant Head Coach Brandon Staley and Sorensen both hands-on with the defense, it's hard to see how Saleh, limited to even a "consultancy" role, could force a shoulder into the equation. Too many cooks, as the proverbial saying goes, spoil the broth, and the 49ers are not well-positioned right now to be tinkering with the system, faced with the ugly potential of a 2-6 record entering their bye. The added distraction for players caused by a sudden changeup in oversight similarly might well make matters worse, rather than better.
Finally, in play would be the public relations nightmare of kicking Sorensen to the curb after such an abbreviated trial. The 49ers as an organization revel in their persona as a personnel-friendly place and booting Sorensen out would run in direct conflict with that image. If moving off Wilks after one season pushed the needle on Lynch's aggressiveness meter, dumping Sorensen would likely shatter it. It seems exceptionally remote at best.
Whether the 49ers react proactively to Robert Saleh's sudden availability remains to be seen. Conventional wisdom would say no. And there's nothing to suggest bringing him back into the organization, regardless of his potential role, would necessarily be a slam-dunk winning move in 2024. That said, if the 49ers' present leaky pipes on defense begin to flood the basement enough that the season is underwater, things that were off the table before can suddenly become possible.
It may not be practical, but no one can deny the idea of a Saleh defensive sequel is intriguing. Unlike Sorensen, the 49ers have had ample opportunity to see what their defense can look like under Saleh. And sitting at 2-3 with an unstable defensive situation, the 49ers would be foolish to blindly look the other way.
- Don Atkinson
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Written by:Don Atkinson is a writer and sports analyst for Reach North Media and The Morning Line.
