Browns to interview 49ers DC Robert Saleh for head coach opening

The 49ers’ defensive coordinator is an early candidate for the Cleveland Browns head coach opening.

It’s not a surprise that 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh’s name surfaced early on the Monday after the end of the NFL’s regular season. With head coaching jobs opening in several places, Saleh, the orchestrator of the NFL’s best pass defense, was sure to become a popular name for those teams with coaching vacancies.

Reports of the Cleveland Browns’ interest in Saleh were confirmed Monday afternoon in head coach Kyle Shanahan’s conference call. Shanahan confirmed to reporters that the Browns’ request to interview Saleh was the only interview request he received, and said the request came at an ideal time.

“It’s actually a perfect situation for Saleh like it was for me because I was fortunate to have the Bye week, also,” Shanahan said of his interview with the 49ers in 2017. “When you have a Bye week, we’re going to get a couple days off at the end of this week. That’s the only thing that stinks for Saleh because he won’t get those days off because he’ll be preparing for an interview one day and then probably doing the interview the next day. But, it’s perfect when you’ve got the Bye week because we’ve got the time to do it. Usually those two days happen and then it’s over. I don’t even think they’re allowed to talk to the guy after that. We’re working every single day getting ready for the playoff game.”

Instead of Saleh going to Cleveland, Browns brass will fly to the Bay Area to save travel time for the 49ers’ defensive coordinator as he prepares for their playoff matchup.

While the 49ers would certainly like to retain Saleh after finishing No. 8 in points allowed and No. 2 in yards allowed in 2019, Shanahan said he’s excited for the opportunity for Saleh.

“I’m pumped for Saleh to get this opportunity,” Shanahan said. “(Browns owners) Mr. and Mrs. Haslam are great people and I think they’re great people to work for. We’ll see how the interview goes for him.”

Saleh, 40, broke into the NFL with an internship on the Houston Texans’ staff in 2005. He became a defensive quality control coach for three seasons, before getting promoted to assistant linebackers coach for two years. He took a defensive quality control job in Seattle from 2011 to 2013, then moved on to the Jacksonville Jaguars where he coached linebackers until signing on as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator in 2017.

While most NFL head coaching searches revolve round offensive thinkers, smart, young, defensive minds that are forward-thinking in thwarting some of the NFL’s high-octane attacks can be equally as valuable.

The 49ers made a massive leap in 2019 after struggling for a couple years under Saleh. They improved across the board this season, and their defensive dominance sparked their 8-0 start en route to a 13-3 finish and an NFC West championship.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if teams start trying to pick off some of the 49ers’ offensive assistants as well for head coach or offensive coordinator gigs. Those assistants could be some of Saleh’s first targets if he does land a head-coaching job.

For now though, the 49ers have their entire coaching staff intact, and will for at least as long as they play in the postseason.

4 NFL coaching candidates teams should avoid: Is Robert Saleh just Gus Bradley 2.0?

Robert Saleh will be a hot name this offseason. Here’s why he shouldn’t be.

Black Monday has taken its toll on the NFL coaching landscape, and the dust hadn’t even settled yet before rumors linking candidates to jobs started flying. The Redskins didn’t waste any time and have reportedly picked Ron Rivera as their next coach.

Things are moving fast! It’s time to get some takes off.

It’s always hard to judge these candidates, especially if they’ve never held NFL coaching jobs before. But that won’t stop me from doing so anyway. Here are four popular coaching candidates that I’d stay away from if I were hiring a new coach this offseason.

1. Matt Rhule, Baylor head coach

I’m not going to lie: I didn’t know much about Rhule’s coaching philosophy before his name started popping up in these coaching searches, which forced me to do some research. And this quote, in particular, raised some major red flags:

“Run pass option has been my deal with the devil,” he said, via Football Scoop. “We won a couple games, but it wasn’t played the way I wanted it to be played. I want the game to look a certain way, with a certain brand. Run pass option has been a bridge for me a way to win. We want to be tough. We believe in full gear, weightlifting, the Oklahoma drill. All the people tell us to be careful about doing, I believe that’s exactly what we need to do.”

Now, Rhule does deserve some credit for being willing to adjust and employing more spread concepts but ignoring the benefits of this schematic shift and wanting to get back to his own “brand” of football because that’s how he thinks the sport should be played is. well, troubling. That’s not how great coaches think.

He’s been successful everywhere he’s been — most recently at Baylor, where he inherited a program in shambles — but building up a mid-level college football team doesn’t necessarily require the same skill-set as building up an NFL team. Maybe Rhule turns out to be Jim Harbaugh, who shared a similar offensive philosophy, but we saw how quickly things went south after the 49ers started losing talent.

2. Robert Saleh, 49ers defensive coordinator

The track record for defensive coaches from the Pete Carroll tree is not very good. Dan Quinn is the closest thing we have to a success story, and it was the Falcons offense that drove his most successful teams. That doesn’t bode well for Saleh.

Based on his three years in San Francisco, Saleh appears to be a non-factor as a coach. He won’t actively hurt your team; but he won’t make it any better, either. When the 49ers defense lacked talent, it ranked in the bottom third of the league. In 2019, the roster is loaded and Saleh has turned in good results. But he won’t be bringing all that talent along with him to his new coaching job, so it’d be foolish to expect him to replicate those results.

Saleh gives me some serious Gus Bradley vibes. Bradley worked under Carroll in Seattle and was seen as a motivator. The Jaguars hired him to recreate Seattle’s defense and build a similar culture in Jacksonville. The result was one of the worst coaching jobs in NFL history. Will another team make the same mistake?

3. Mike McCarthy, former Packers head coach

The NFL Network recently did a feature on McCarthy, who has apparently spent this sabbatical studying new offensive schemes and diving headfirst into analytics.

Mike McCarthy seems to have reinvented himself. If you haven’t watched this feature by @TomPelissero, you should⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/LNfgTiHx48

— James Rapien (@JamesRapien) December 30, 2019

Yeah, I’m not buying the “changed man” routine. McCarthy was one of the more conservative coaches in the league during his time in Green Bay and his offense hadn’t evolved since the mid-2000s. It’s easy to talk about how you’re going to be bold, but in the heat of the moment, people typically revert back to what makes them most comfortable. For McCarthy, that’s calling a million slant-flat route combinations per game and punting on every fourth-and-short.

While I do think McCarthy is capable of taking a good roster and turning it into a playoff team, that’s not necessarily what those ready-to-win teams are looking for. They want a coach who can get them over the hump and into Super Bowl contention. I don’t think McCarthy is that guy.

4. Greg Roman, Ravens offensive coordinator

I know, I know. The Ravens have the league’s best offense. It’s also fun as hell to watch. But I just don’t know how efficient Roman’s run-first approach is when you don’t have one of the best offensive lines in football and/or Lamar Jackson orchestrating things from behind center.

This is the first season of Roman’s career as a play-caller that he’ll finish with a top-10 scoring offense. After a good start in San Francisco, his offenses declined every season from 2012 to 2014 when he was fired. He coached the Bills offense to a good finish in 2015, but he was fired in September the following season and the offense didn’t regress under Anthony Lynn. While those Bills and 49ers teams could always run the ball, Roman’s passing game left a lot to be desired. And if you don’t have Lamar running behind an elite offensive line, can you really rely on a running game to carry your offense? Not in this economy.

If Roman was willing to take John Harbaugh’s aggressive, analytics-based philosophies with him to his new team, I’d be much more optimistic, but we don’t know if that’s the case. And I don’t know if this Lamar-centric scheme is enough to get me excited about Roman’s prospects as a head coach.

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Giants head coaching search: 15 potential candidates

The New York Giants have fired head coach Pat Shurmur, so here’s a look at 15 candidates who could replace him.

As many things change, so many stay the same — especially in East Rutherford, where the New York Giants have fired head coach Pat Shurmur and are once again on the prowl for a replacement.

The Giants now need to hire their fifth head coach since 2015 and since they got a late start, there’s a lot of ground to make up.

Here’s a look at 15 potential head coaching candidates.

Editor’s note: Having gone over several of these names previously, there’s no real reason to completely rehash everything just for the sake of doing it, so we’re going to blockquote out previous analysis and commentary, and add to it if needed.

Matt Rhule

Rhule is drawing interest from the Carolina Panthers and others, but rumors suggest he’s looking for a place where he can control personnel or he’s not leaving college. Are the Giants that team? Ehh…

Rhule has had success just about everywhere he has gone, and his time at Baylor has been no exception. With the school dealing with some very serious issues, he’s brought it back from the ashes. Not only that, Rhule has a familiarity with the Giants and team ownership, having served as their assistant offensive line coach in 2012. He’s generated head coaching interest in recent years and very nearly landed the Jets job prior to the hiring of Adam Gase.

Forgetting about his desire to control personnel, Rhule has no NFL head coaching experience to speak of, which is something the Giants may look to avoid this time around.

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Why the 49ers’ pass defense has fallen apart — and can it be fixed?

Over the last four weeks of the 2019 season, the 49ers’ formerly dominant defense has taken multiple hits. Can this be solved?

From Weeks 1-12 of the 2019 season, only the New England Patriots could claim to have a better pass defense than the San Francisco 49ers, and that’s only because the 2019 Patriots were (and are) playing pass defense at a historically great rate. But the 49ers, led by defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, weren’t far off. From Weeks 1-12, San Francisco allowed opposing quarterbacks to post a QBR of 72.50, and only the Patriots were better at 50.55. The 49ers allowed a Positive Play Rate (plays in which the Expected Points Added were above zero) of 37%, and only New England was better at 36%. Per Sports Info Solutions, the 49ers’ defense saved 188.5 points below the average, and opposing offenses had minus -140.3 EPA against them. Again, only the Patriots were better in either category.

No defense allowed fewer completions (198) or passing yards (1,854), and though there was a vulnerability in touchdowns allowed (11), matching the interception total with 11 seemed to make that problem go away. The 49ers were 10-1 after 12 weeks, their only loss in overtime to Seattle, and the defense was the biggest part of that success equation.

Then, regression happened in a big hurry. The 49ers went 2-2 in their next four games, including a Week 15 loss to the Falcons that put everybody on alert. Losing 20-17 to the Ravens is one thing, but allowing Matt Ryan to complete 22 of 34 passes for 234 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions in a 29-22 stunner? Well, that’s not the act of a top defense. And over the last month, the 49ers’ defense has been anything but.

San Francisco has had a Positive Play Rate of 49% in that time. Their opposing QBR allowed has jumped to 102.39. They’ve saved 15.3 points above the average (the Packers have led the league in that time at 81.1), and their EPA of 24.3 is the fifth-worst in football, behind the Lions, Jaguars, Raiders, and Giants. They’ve allowed 95 completions for 987 yards, 10 touchdowns, and just one interception over that 2-2 stretch. Basically, the team that will take the field once again against the Seahawks this Sunday in hope of gaining the first overall seed in the NFL playoff picture has a defense playing like you’d expect from a team awaiting a top 10 slot in the draft.

Pass rush has certainly been a problem. From Weeks 1-12, San Francisco led the NFL with 45 total sacks, and 4.09 sacks per game. And while they were in the middle of the pack in quarterback hits (71) and hurries (109), the extent to which Nick Bosa and his buddies on the defensive line were able to demolish the intentions of enemy quarterbacks went a long way to disguising those other numbers.

Over the last four weeks, it’s been a very different story. San Francisco is tied for last in the league with the Browns and Seahawks with just three total sacks, and though they’ve kept the hits and hurries going to the point where the team’s overall pressure percentage has gone up from 29.67% to 31.06%, those pressures are not leading to breakups of big plays. Quite the opposite.

And as is the case with most Legion of Boom-style defenses, this one doesn’t blitz a lot. The 49ers have the fourth-lowest blitz percentage in the NFL at 20.3%, which was fine when they were getting home with just four defenders. But that’s not happening now, and the pressure/coverage schism is negatively affecting both sides at the worst possible time.

Injuries have also played a factor. That the 49ers’ pass defense has declined severely at the time time the team has been missing safety Jaquiski Tartt is absolutely no coincidence. Tartt suffered a broken rib in the team’s Week 13 loss to the Ravens, and the hope is he’ll be back for the Seattle game. He’s been the team’s best safety this season, allowing just 13 catches on 25 targets for 98 yards and one touchdown all season, and the efforts of Jimmie Ward and Marcell Harris have not matched up.

In the last four weeks of the 2019 season, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh has struggled to keep up with injuries, and opponents keying on vulnerable tendencies. (Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports)

Saleh was also without Richard Sherman after the veteran cornerback suffered a hamstring strain against the Saints in Week 14, missed the Falcons game, and returned in Week 16 against the Rams. Sherman has been one of the five best cornerbacks in the NFL this season, clamping down on enemy receivers, so the absence of these two great players would go a long way to explaining the current malaise. Not to mention the losses of edge-rusher Dee Ford, who’s been out with a hamstring issue since Week 14, and linebacker Kwon Alexander, who was lost for the regular season to a torn pectoral in early November.

The result of all this? Plays like this 10-yard touchdown pass from Jared Goff to receiver Brandin Cooks in San Francisco’s 34-31 win over the Rams last Saturday. Cooks gets free to the left uncontested, linebackers Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw bite on Goff’s boot-action, and three defenders follow Robert Woods on his crossing route. Cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon gets close near the end of the play, but not close enough. When this defense isn’t reading correctly, there isn’t really a lockdown scheme, or a current group of healthy players, in line to make up for it.

Warner’s 46-yard interception return for a touchdown near the end of the first half was one example of how this defense works as it’s supposed to. The four-man line compresses the pocket, forcing Goff to make an off-platform throw. Warner reads the quick pass to running back Malcolm Brown all the way, and that’s that.

There is another vulnerability the 49ers defense has, and opposing offensive coordinators are starting to go after them heavily to attack it.

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3 matchups that will decide 49ers – Ravens showdown

The 49ers move to the second step of their three-game stretch of teams .800 or better with a visit to Baltimore.

The 49ers visit Baltimore on Sunday for the second phase of their three-game stretch against teams with winning percentages of .800 or better. They’ll have a tough task trying to slow down the highest-scoring offense in the league, led by quarterback Lamar Jackson. San Francisco’s offense also faces a tall task against a Ravens defense that’s allowed just 11.5 points per game in their last four.

Here are the three matchups that matter most in Baltimore:

Robert Saleh vs. Lamar Jackson

Saleh will have to figure out how to do something not many teams have been able to this season: put together a game plan to slow down Jackson. Slowing him is the key to keeping Baltimore from racking up 30-plus points– something they’ve done six times this season.

If there’s any defensive coordinator that can do it, it’s Saleh. Saleh was able to put together a plan last week that held Aaron Rodgers to just 104 passing yards and his worst-ever yards per attempt. It could be game of adjustments for Saleh and the defense, but they’ll need to play their best game of the season against Jackson and company.

Richard Sherman vs. Marquise Brown

Brown has been Jackson’s second-favorite target behind Mark Andrews, but Brown is by far his most explosive. It’s not easy to beat Sherman. Speed is one way teams have tried to attack the 31-year-old. Sherman has also had a penalty issue the past couple of weeks with five penalties, including three pass interferences, against Arizona and Green Bay. Sherman can thwart Brown’s speed with physicality, but that opens him up to those flags coming out.

Fred Warner vs. Mark Ingram

Lost in Jackson’s MVP-caliber season is Mark Ingram’s importance to the Ravens’ offense. Ingram is averaging a whopping 5.2 yards per carry and has nine rushing touchdowns. The 49ers have struggled against the run game all season, allowing 100 or more yards on the ground in nine of their 11 games. Warner has been good against the run while putting together an All-Pro caliber season in the middle of the 49ers’ defense. He has a team-high 81 tackles and six tackles for loss. Not only will Warner be important against a running Jackson, but also Ingram while trying to contain the league’s best running team.

Can the 49ers stop Lamar Jackson from running wild? History is not encouraging

The 49ers have one of the NFL’s best defenses. But there’s one obvious vulnerability — and it’s one that Lamar Jackson can easily exploit.

So, we’re past the point where anybody is assuming Lamar Jackson is anything but a pure quarterback, right? Yeah, we thought so. Jackson’s bravura performance against the Rams on Monday Night Football — he completed 15 of 20 passes for 169 yards, five touchdowns, and no interceptions against Wade Phillips’ helpless defense — put the league on notice (as if the league wasn’t already on notice) that Jackson can beat you just as easily with his passing as he can with his rushing abilities. Through the 2019 season, Jackson has taken great strides as a quarterback, improving his ability to throw with anticipation and accuracy into tight windows, and to work through his progressions to find the ideal target.

“It was impressive,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said after his team’s 45-6 debacle. “When you sit there and watch, and you feel the operation up close and personal — you just see how sharp they are with their execution, what a dynamic playmaker he is, what a great job they do of creating conflict before the snap, changing your fits. And then on third down, they were really impressive. Just his ability to find some completions and make some plays with his legs — there’s a reason why people are talking about him as an MVP. It felt like it tonight.”

This Sunday, another NFC West defense has Jackson to deal with. The 49ers will travel to M&T Bank Stadium to try and shut Jackson down — or, at least, slow him down. On its face, San Francisco’s defense would seem to have a decent chance. The unit led by defensive coordinator Robert Saleh ranks second in the NFL in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted defensive metrics, behind only the Patriots. They rank second against the pass, and 16th against the run. San Francisco’s defensive front and linebacker corps is a quick-moving group in which everyone loves to get to the quarterback — especially rookie edge-rusher Nick Bosa, who has nine sacks, nine quarterback hits, and 36 quarterback hurries on the season, per Pro Football Focus’ metrics. The 49ers are also coming off a 37-8 Sunday night demolition of the Packers in which Aaron Rodgers and his crew couldn’t get out of first gear at all.

However, the same things that make this pass rush so formidable make the same defense vulnerable to the run — especially to specific run concepts. San Francisco ranks 13th in FO’s Defensive Adjusted Line Yards metric, and they’re not good at all against runs in the open field, ranking 25th in yards earned against runs 5-10 yards past the line of scrimmage, and 30th in yards earned beyond that.

49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked this week of Jackson’s success as a runner this season — he has 124 carries for 874 yards, a league-leading 7.1 yards per carry average, and six touchdowns on the ground — was the result of the NFL not yet catching up with Baltimore’s multi-faceted run game.

Shanahan had a ready answer for that.

“I don’t think it necessarily is catching up,” he said. “Just like I didn’t think the defense ever caught up with the zone-read either. It’s not a trick play. It puts guys in a bind. It makes teams play 11-on-11 football. You’ve got to decide whether you want to play 11-on-11 or if you want to keep things the same and play 10-on-11. Most people, usually the quarterback makes you pay if you play 10-on-11 when you have these type of quarterbacks. You do have to change some stuff up and then what else does that open up and how good are you at that? Eventually, you can take stuff away. Then you’ve got to balance it out and see what holes that opened up because they take it away. I Think it will be that way until the end of time. I mean, no one catches up with this stuff. It’s not a gimmick play, it’s a very sound way to run an offense and they are doing it at a very high level right now.”

So, the 49ers are aware of the problem. Even if they are able to limit him as a quarterback with their coverages, they will have to be on alert against his running abilities — and this is a specific vulnerability of Saleh’s defense. Designed quarterback runs, especially to the outside, have absolutely gashed the 49ers. In Week 11 against the Arizona Cardinals and rookie quarterback Kyler Murray this season, Murray attempted seven designed runs, six of which were to the outside. On those plays, Murray averaged 9.3 yards per play and had a 22-yard touchdown run.

The 49ers’ inability to contain Murray was obvious, and disconcerting with Jackson on the docket. The touchdown run is a graphic example.

There was also this 21-yard run, which mirrors some of Baltimore’s misdirection concepts. Teams are using San Francisco’s speed and aggressiveness against it in the run game, and it’s working.

It also worked for Seattle’s Russell Wilson the week before on this 18-yard scramble.

“We brought a five-man pressure and they blocked us up with seven and it created a lane for Russell to run through that C-gap,” Saleh said a few days later, when asked if the Wilson play represented a gap integrity issue. “The coverage we were playing on the back end caught us a little bit deeper than we wanted, and it gave him an exit lane.

“I wasn’t expecting the tight end to stay in. It was a good call by them.”

It’s a common problem, though Saleh said last week that it isn’t an overarching concern, and that Jackson brings different things to the run game.

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7 candidates to replace Giants coach Pat Shurmur

The New York Giants are unlikely to fire head coach Pat Shurmur, but if they do, here are seven candidates to replace him.

The New York Giants have no plans to fire coach Pat Shurmur this year or at any point during the offseason, meaning that his job could be safe through 2020.

Of course, Giants ownership let similar information leak when it came to former coach Ben McAdoo, and we all know how that ended up playing out.

So while it’s unlikely the Giants move on from Shurmur over the next calendar year, there’s no denying he’s put himself firmly on the hot seat. Accordingly, we’re here to examine seven candidates who could eventually replace him.

Tom Coughlin

Yep. We’re starting out in controversial fashion, but let’s not pretend that forcing Coughlin to step down wasn’t the first in a long string of poor decisions that led these Giants to where they are today. The real question would be whether or not Coughlin would want to come back to New York. Or, at this point, whether he even desires a return to the sideline at all.

Bottom line: The Giants need an old-school disciplinarian leading the way because the whole player-friendly thing is clearly not working.

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