When the 49ers hired Robert Saleh to be their defensive coordinator this offseason, they knew they probably wouldn’t have him for long.
The Jets never should have fired Saleh in the first place. He made that team somewhat respectable. Now, it’s terrible again. Meanwhile, the 49ers’ defense is performing well, even with a bunch of rookies and no Fred Warner or Nick Bosa. Which means Saleh will be one of the top head-coach candidates this upcoming offseason, according to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini.
Assuming Saleh will become a head coach somewhere else in the next few months, here are five coaches who could replace him as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator in 2026.
Like Saleh, Gannon is a good defensive coach who has been unable to build a playoff team on a bad franchise. Which means the Cardinals probably will scapegoat Gannon and fire him at the end of the season if the Cardinals miss the playoffs, which they probably will, considering Kyler Murray is injured and not particularly good when healthy.
If Gannon gets fired, he probably would like to go back to the Eagles, which is where he coached before Arizona, but Philadelphia has Vic Fangio and doesn’t need Gannon anymore. That’s where the 49ers come in. They’d want Gannon because he knows the NFC West and is a good coordinator.
The 49ers tried to hire Belichick as their defensive coordinator in 2024, but he turned them down. Now, he’s on the verge of getting bought out of his contract at North Carolina — that’s how bad he’s doing in his first season as a college head coach.
If he gets pushed out and wants to rebuild his reputation as a football coach, he always can come work for the 49ers under Kyle Shanahan. Belichick’s days as a head coach might be over soon.
Hiring Gannon or Belichick would mean a schematic change for the 49ers defense.
If they want to keep things the same, they can promote assistant head coach Gus Bradley to defensive coordinator next season. Bradley coaches the same scheme as Saleh because Bradley mentored Saleh for years in Seattle and Jacksonville. They see football through the same lens.
Bullocks quietly has been on the 49ers’ coaching staff since 2017, and arguably is the most underrated assistant coach on the team, considering the secondary always is well coached. In retrospect, he probably would have been a better defensive coordinator for the 49ers than Steve Wilks and Nick Sorensen because the players respect him.
Wright might be a little too green to become the defensive coordinator next year, considering he still is just a quality control coach. But don’t be surprised if he becomes the DC at some point in the near future. He was a highly successful linebacker in the NFL, and the 49ers seem to be grooming him the way they groomed DeMeco Ryans once upon a time.
