We will discuss potential defensive coordinators for the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday morning. After his Wednesday press conference, Kyle Shanahan may have tipped his hand on who his next coordinator will be.
Kyle Shanahan was asked if he plans to cast a wide net, and who the internal candidates are for the job is:
I wouldn’t say it’s a real wide net. Gus is the obvious one to everyone, and is for us, too. Gus would be the main internal candidate. Feel very fortunate to get Gus, and feel great about that.
But also, we are going to go through the whole process. There are requirements that we have to do and want to do, also. Hopefully, we can get it settled sooner than later. I see it working throughout this next week on it.
Later on, Shanahan was asked if he wanted to stay with the defensive scheme that had worked for him throughout the years, which had primarily come from the Seattle coaching tree:
When you say Seattle system, I feel like that’s from when we first got here. A four-down front and a team that majored in Cover 3. I think what’s left from that is we major in a four down front. It really hasn’t been that since 2019. It’s been totally different.
We had a lot of 5-down fronts this year. There’s teams that are 3-4 base that didn’t get into base the entire year. They’re in nickel throughout the whole time. So I think the semantics, or the way you describe that is a little overrated.
Defenses need a little bit of everything. Yeah, we have a four-down front. That’s what we like to do. But I thought it was important that we have some 5-down fronts this year. And we did put that in. I think it’s important that you do have a coverage that you can really settle on, knowing that’s what we do the best.
But if you don’t have 4-5 coverages that can play off that, then it doesn’t really matter how good you are at that coverage. That’s how good this league works now. Offensive coaches know how to attack things too much. You have to up the variable of what they know they are going to get. That starts with front change. That starts with coverage change. And it goes with personnel change. I think we’ve done more of that each year, and we’ll continue to have to do more of that.
That’s an in-depth answer that does not describe what Gus Bradley has been as a coordinator during his NFL career. Bradley has been known for running various Cover 2 and 3 schemes, mainly the latter, but has not had much success along the way.
Per ACME Packing’s Justis Mosqueda, Gus Bradley’s defenses, passer rating against:
2025: 26th
2024: 23rd
2023: 13th
2022: 30th
2021: 25th
We will do a deeper dive if Bradley is indeed the coordinator, but we’ve seen how Bradley’s defenses fare in the NFL, especially against elite units. There is no secret as to what you’re getting, and the innovation has left plenty to be desired.
