The 49ers’ latest trade reiterates their trust in Robert Saleh

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With each passing week, Robert Saleh’s influence with the 49ers seems to expand.

The team’s latest transaction, a deal that will reportedly send Eagles edge rusher Bryce Huff to San Francisco in exchange for a Day 3 (Rounds 4-7) pick, is the latest example.

ESPN said Friday that the 49ers and Eagles are working to finalize a trade involving Huff that can’t and won’t be completed until after June 1. As part of the agreement, Philadelphia is slated to pay over half of Huff’s salary.

Huff spent the first four seasons of his career with the Jets, serving as a rotational edge rusher — delivering most of his snaps in pass-rushing situations on third down The 255-pounder broke out in 2023, his final season under Saleh, logging 10 sacks and leading the NFL in pressure rate.

But after signing a three-year, $51 million deal with the Eagles, Huff’s productivity plummeted in 2024. Huff’s third-down pass-rushing prowess didn’t fit as well on Philadelphia’s loaded defensive front — Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio wanted him to be a three-down player in a 3-4 base scheme — and a torn wrist ligament knocked him out of the rotation entirely.

Unlike the Eagles, the 49ers see a perfect fit for Huff, who specializes in speed rushing out of a four-point stance, in Saleh’s 4-3 scheme. They spent much of the recent NFL Draft fortifying their 29th-ranked run defense — rookie linemen Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins and CJ West all specialize in that — and were still interested in adding a bona fide pass rusher.

“[He’s an] elite, elite pass rusher,” Saleh, back when he was with the Jets, said of Huff. “Closes games. People want to say is rush the passer, but all Mariano Rivera did was close ninth innings.”

Huff was set to earn $17 million in fully guaranteed money from the Eagles this year. Philadelphia will cover $9.05 million of that, while the 49ers will kick in $7.95 million. They also retain contractual control over Huff in 2026, when he has a non-guaranteed roster bonus of about $15 million due on March 15.

So it comes down to this for the 49ers: Huff — a pass-rushing specialist who’s had big success under their defensive coordinator — for a Day 3 draft pick and $7.95 million. For comparison, that’s less than the $8 million former 49ers defensive lineman Samson Ebukam is now making with the Indianapolis Colts.

Huff joins a unit in San Francisco led by Nick Bosa and Williams, the first-round draft pick out of Georgia. The team also returns veteran Yetur Gross-Matos, but the 49ers’ pass rushing ranks were thinned out earlier this offseason when Leonard Floyd was cut.

The decision to acquire Huff follows a move earlier this week to sign former Jets linebacker Chazz Surratt, who will add experience to another group anchored by a star in Fred Warner but that remains otherwise thin on pro experience.

Surratt was a backup linebacker for the Jets from 2022-2024 and also served as a valuable special teams player under then-coordinator Brant Boyer, who was hired to lead the 49ers’ special teams units this offseason.

49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan hasn’t been coy about how thrilled he is to reunite with Saleh, who served as the defensive coordinator in San Francisco from 2017-2019 before departing to coach the Jets. The 49ers cycled through three different coordinators — DeMeco Ryans, Steve Wilks, and Nick Sorensen — who all had varying degrees of success.

Ryans was a fast-riser in the coaching ranks and left the staff to become the head coach of the Texans, whereas Wilks was a former head coach who never seemed to mesh with Shanahan despite coordinating a defense that helped lead the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance.

Sorensen, who was promoted to defensive coordinator last year, oversaw one of the league’s worst run defenses and was fired at the beginning of the offseason.

The 49ers didn’t have to search far and wide for a replacement as Saleh was the clear choice from the start. The only issue was waiting out a head coaching cycle where Saleh was viewed as a serious candidate for multiple vacancies.

Once the former Jets’ head coach was no longer in consideration for a top job, he and the 49ers worked quickly to arrange a deal that brought him back to San Francisco.

The unit he’ll lead in 2025 is far different from the one he oversaw during the 49ers’ run to an NFC title in 2019, but it still features Bosa and Warner. Aside from the mainstays, the 49ers have worked aggressively to reshape the defense in Saleh’s image, using each of their first five draft picks on defensive players who are all realistic candidates to earn significant playing time this year.

Beyond the draft picks, acquisitions such as Huff and Surratt add players with experience playing in Saleh’s defensive system who should help provide stability for a defense that lacked it for much of last season.