Former Jets head coach Robert Saleh to return to 49ers as defensive coordinator, per report

It’s never too late to come home.

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan certainly believes that as he is about to hire his first 49ers defensive coordinator, Robert Saleh, he returns to the same role, according to the Athletic. Saleh served as the original defensive coordinator for Shanahan’s 49ers for four seasons from 2017 to 2020, a span that included San Francisco Living Super Bowl Liv in the 2019 season, before becoming the head coach of the New York Jets in 2021.

Saleh was in the mix for head coaching vacancies with the Dallas Cowboys, It was his first in-person interview.and interviewed with the Jacksonville Jaguars also. However with Jacksonville Focusing on Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen after Firing General Manager Trent Baalke on WednesdaySaleh opted to return to the place where he launched his career as an NFL head coach rather than wait for the official announcement that the Jaguars would be hiring Coen.

Saleh was 20-36 in just under four seasons as the Jets’ head coach following his Week 5 firing in 2024. However, his defense was never really the problem in New York. After having the league’s worst defense in 2021, Saleh’s squads were top-five total defensemen in each of his last three seasons.

The Jets selected Zach Wilson second overall in the 2021 NFL draft out of BYU, but he never went out. That’s why the team traded for a 40-year-old Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers in 2023. He tore his Achilles in Week 1 that season, and then the team collapsed offensively in Rodgers’ first full season playing with the Jets in 2024.

New York actually had a top-five defense in almost every key metric in 2024 before Saleh’s firing, but then the unit fell apart after his departure.

After an injury-plagued 2024 season in which the 49ers were the NFL’s 29th-ranked scoring defense (25.6 points per game allowed), they’re right back on the ship in 2025.