The 49ers likely land their big fish in Robert Saleh. Here are the wild twists that made it possible

“All gas, no brakes” — the popular rallying cry of boomerang 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh — is a team slogan once again, though it took more hairpin turns than the windy coastal road to Big Sur to reach a straightaway.

Barring unforeseen events, Saleh is expected to return as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator. He was the big fish of the team’s search to replace the ousted Nick Sorensen, who isn’t expected to remain on staff. Saleh first presided over a remarkable 49ers’ defensive turnaround from 2017 to 2020 and — following three-plus seasons as head coach of the New York Jets — is back for a second run with the team.

The 49ers first interviewed Saleh for the opening Jan. 9, and it quickly became clear that he was coach Kyle Shanahan’s top choice.

But Saleh proceeded to interview for head coaching positions with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders, and Dallas Cowboys. As recently as Thursday afternoon, it appeared that a return to the Bay Area was unlikely. That’s because Saleh seemed to have become the favorite for the Jaguars job. He’d even reportedly begun working on a coaching staff he planned to bring to Jacksonville.

But in a dramatic and possibly unprecedented turnaround, outgoing Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen re-engaged the Jaguars in discussions about their head-coaching job after backing out Wednesday. Coen ghosted his former bosses in Tampa — who’d offered him top-level money to remain offensive coordinator — for 26 hours, secretly flew to Jacksonville, and reportedly blamed his disappearance on a sick child. By Thursday night, Coen agreed to terms with the Jaguars, all while Saleh didn’t even make a scheduled trip to Florida for his second-round interview with the team.

The path was clear for Saleh to rejoin the 49ers, possibly thanks to another bizarre twist of fate that encouraged Coen to return to Jacksonville. It appears that Wednesday’s firing of Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke — the maligned GM of the 49ers from 2011 to 2016 who survived the dismissals of coaches Jim Harbaugh and Jim Tomsula — opened the door for the 49ers to land their prized defensive coordinator. It’s also worth noting that Ethan Waugh, Jacksonville’s interim GM, who previously spent nearly two decades with the 49ers, might have benefited his former team by successfully restarting those talks with Coen.

While the journey to Saleh’s availability took a convoluted path, the 49ers’ needs are more straightforward. Their defense has suffered a severe regression over the past two seasons following the departure of DeMeco Ryans, Saleh’s designated successor, and the opportunity to turn back the clock made too much sense.

Coordinators: Saleh (2019-20), Ryans (2021-22), Steve Wilks (2023) and Sorensen (2024).

The most concerning slide has come on run defense, where the 49ers — an above-average unit under Saleh even in 2017 and 2018, when they were bereft of difference-making talent — has plummeted toward the bottom of the NFL over the past two seasons.

Although Saleh’s run with the Jets was marred by offensive struggles centered on quarterback drama, New York’s defense surged under its head coach. The unit climbed from No. 32 — dead last — in expected points added during Saleh’s first season in 2021 to No. 3 in 2023. At the time of Saleh’s firing in October, the Jets defense ranked No. 6. It then ranked No. 30 from the point of his departure to the end of the season.

It stands to reason that Saleh might make a push to bring some of his former players and staffers from the Jets to this second go-round with the 49ers. That opens the possibility to several Bay Area reunions. Former 49ers Solomon Thomas, Javon Kinlaw, and D.J. Reed will see their contracts with the Jets expire in March. Defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton and defensive backs coach Tony Oden, who coached under Saleh with the 49ers before following him to New York, are also available. It’s also worth noting that Joe Woods, the 49ers’ DB coach under Saleh in the highly successful 2019 campaign, is again a free agent after stints as a defensive coordinator in Cleveland and New Orleans.

There’s also a chance that Saleh might help bring the 49ers a new special teams coordinator. Brant Boyer, who’s held that role with the Jets since 2016, reportedly interviewed with the 49ers for the job and might even be the favorite to fill it. Sorensen, who’d been a candidate to remain on the 49ers’ staff as special teams coordinator, is out of the running for that remaining vacancy.

As far as defensive schematics go, the 49ers believe that the 45-year-old Saleh has the institutional knowledge and experience to stabilize the team’s defense and give it the dexterity necessary to combat the NFL’s evolving offenses.

Saleh, for example, didn’t call a high rate of blitzes during his four seasons with the 49ers and in his best two seasons with the Jets, but he has shown the ability to dial up extra pressure to mitigate troublesome situations. That’s something Sorensen’s defense, which sent two or more rushers a league-low 1.7% of the time, struggled with in 2024.

“I’m not saying you have to change schemes, but you have to have the ability, the history, and the knowledge of how to change some stuff up when you’re in certain situations, and I do think we need more of that moving forward,” Shanahan said at the beginning of his search process earlier this month. “I want someone who meshes with what I believe in. You have to come up with the best thing possible that fits our situation right now.”

From 2017 to 2020, that was Saleh. He shepherded the 49ers defense into a top-level unit. Even before the mass infusion of talent in 2019, his infectious energy helped ensure the basis of a strong run defense. Then, when the likes of Nick Bosa and Dre Greenlaw joined the team in Year 3, Saleh presided over a defense that knocked on the door of historical greatness. It remained a solid unit in 2020 even despite a mass rash of injuries that might’ve been even more threatening than the 2024 calamity that ultimately sunk the defense. Saleh’s final season with the 49ers, as frustrating as it was, might’ve marked his best work.

In those formative years, Saleh flexed and roared on the sideline in huge moments, drawing the attention of television cameras during some of the most pivotal moments of the 49ers’ ascent. One came in Week 6 of the 2019 season at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, when Saleh became a sideline star while his 49ers defense shut down the Rams, defending NFC champions at the time.

The 49ers defense had embodied Saleh’s fiery personality and announced its presence on the national stage for the first time. Now, looking to reassert themselves over half a decade later, the 49ers have once again turned to Saleh.

They’ve shown their old friend the gas pedal. But Saleh doesn’t need to learn how to press it. He’s driven this machine before.