Like a worn pair of pants found in the back of the closet, Robert Saleh is sliding back into a role he knows well, rejoining the San Francisco 49ers as defensive coordinator, a title he held for four seasons before becoming the New York Jets head coach.
Speaking for the first time on Thursday since returning to the Bay Area, Saleh said his experience as a head coach makes him appreciate diving back into the on-field aspect of coaching a defense.
"Obviously, I've gone through the head coaching stuff and you learn a lot going through that," he said, via the team's official transcript. "But I'm happy to be back in this chair where I get to coach a little bit more football and not deal with all the administrative stuff that comes with being a head coach. The perspective, I guess, especially, and that's what was exciting about coming back. Just being in a building where I was once a coordinator and now having head coaching experience, to have that global view. So, there's a lot of empathy for understanding what (coach) Kyle (Shanahan) is going through and trying to help him out best I can. But it's just, I guess more experience."
The Jets fired Saleh early in his fourth season in New York. He spent the rest of the year as a consultant in Green Bay. He was a head coaching candidate this offseason in Jacksonville. When he didn't get that gig, a return to San Francisco, who fired Nick Sorensen in January, was logical.
Saleh noted that the club sticking with him after struggling his first two seasons in San Francisco makes him indebted to the team.
"I have a tremendous amount of respect for this organization," Saleh said. "And during the first two years, if you think about those first two years as D-coordinator in '17 and '18, it wasn't easy. And it could have been very easy for them to move on from me. And so ... I'm indebted to this organization, to those men for the rest of my life. They stuck with me and we made it happen. We did what we needed to do, and the rest is history. I'm excited about the opportunity to get the chance to do it again with them."
Two years to figure things out in San Francisco is a luxury the previous two DCs received -- Sorensen and Steve Wilks were fired after one season.
Saleh said his defense has naturally evolved over the years, and he's excited to get back to coaching the likes of Nick Bosa and Fred Warner.
"Yeah, for sure it's evolved," Saleh explained. "You're always trying to stay two years ahead of the offense. And when we went to the Jets, there were a lot of different things that we started to do. And even now, while we have some things from the Jets, there's stuff that has evolved over the course of the last four years here, and obviously with the league that there's stuff happening. We've, over this offseason, a lot of really cool concepts, a lot of really cool things. So, some things are the same, some things are the same from the Jets, some things are meshed, some things are coming in that are new. So, it's like I said, we're trying to stay a couple years ahead. A lot of it may seem similar, but there's a lot of nuance that makes a difference."
The Niners' offseason overhaul included losing a significant chunk of their defense, with Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga, Charvarius Ward, Leonard Floyd and others leaving. Saleh will be counting on some younger players, like first-round edge Mykel Williams and third-round corner Nick Martin, to play bigger roles. Saleh's return likely made the front office a tad more comfortable with all the defensive changes, given the DC's ability to get the most out of his younger players.
