The 49ers’ season just ended with a loss to the Seahawks, but things are just getting started for defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. Saleh is expected to be a hot heat coaching candidate this cycle, and it sounds like he’s got his first move lined up. Saleh will interview with the Falcons over zoom for their job on Monday, San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan revealed during his post-game press conference.
Atlanta won’t stop there, as they’re also going to interview Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy on Monday, a source told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). They clearly aren’t honing in on anything specific, interviewing coaches with defensive and offensive backgrounds. Saleh is a highly regarded leader who always has his defenses playing with high intensity, and when they were healthy the 49ers had one of the league’s best defenses last year.
Bieniemy has a ringing endorsement from Andy Reid, which obviously goes a long way these days. He’s been in Kansas City with Reid since 2013, previously as his running backs coach. Bieniemy is widely considered to be one of the frontrunners for the Texans’ job.
The Falcons won’t be the only team interested in Saleh, and Shanahan even said that he would have several more interviews in the coming days. Saleh is from Michigan, and has also been linked to the Lions’ job. Get ready, the coaching carousel is just starting to heat up.
I’m not saying these guys aren’t good or even great but I can’t help but notice the coordinators getting a look also coach great players. I did like the comment on Saleh getting players to play hard for him and Bieniemy had an endorsement from Reid which goes a long way. Both coach under respected HC but you can look at that two ways in my mind. Either they’ve learned a lot from watching it done well or perhaps those HC had more to do with their own success than we know. They might be great I’m just saying Adam Gase for example had some great players(Manning and many more)and parlayed that into two head coaching jobs neither of which let him coach even a third year.
good point…but also coaches draft and/or develop those great players as well, kind of a 2 way street i would imagine is what mostly happens. Bad coaches, for example Gase, can’t develop or even have the players regress under their watch. Or even worse, for example Gase again lol, gets rid of talent at every turn….only thing that worries me is hearing a coach is a great motivator, thats great and all but we had that with Quinn and that message becomes stale after a while
Big difference between a good coordinator and a head coach but I wish them both well. I really question how much offensive success is Andy Reid and helps having a Mahones expecting your offensive game plan
Executing not expecting
I’m in favor of executing the Falcons’offense-
Hat tip to John Mckay