San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has an opportunity in the coming days or weeks to get outside of his comfort zone. For now, it seems like Shanahan is going to hire soon-to-be 60-year-old Gus Bradley to be his defensive coordinator.
Bradley, a holdover from the Legion of Boom days in Seattle, spent this past season with the 49ers, serving as their associate head coach, helping with the red-zone defense, and telling stories on Saturday night before the game.
We do not have to pretend like this is some new, up-and-coming, innovative play-caller. If anything, it’s the opposite. We have enough recent data on Bradley as a coordinator, and the sample size does not project like the 49ers are upgrading:
If you ask any Jaguars, Chargers, Colts, or Raiders fan, they will tell you some hard truths about what it was like with Bradley as a coordinator.
Does that mean the 49ers would be destined for doom under Bradley? Not at all. But it’s difficult to imagine the Niners evolving under Bradley, which is exactly what this team needs to do, as teams that matter around them do.
The Seahawks hired 38-year-old Mike Macdonald. The Rams hired 39-year-old Chris Shula. The Lions’ defensive coordinator is 38. Dallas just hired a 34-year-old. The league is getting younger and bringing in coaches with fresh ideas built on the ones Bradley developed a decade ago.
We’ve seen a shift in coverage from Cover 3, something Bradley has been famously known to live and die by as his teams led the league every year when he was calling plays, to zone and man-match quarters coverages. Even Saleh evolved.
After being in the building for a full year and working closely with Saleh, one would think Bradley will. Then again, the guy in his 60s who just coached for the previous eight years running a very specific coverage and front is probably going to stick to what he knows.
The interviews during this process should tell us where Shanahan’s mindset is and if he’s even considering thinking outside of the box.
When you go to the team site, defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks is no longer listed. That was a coach many thought would at least get an interview. If Bullocks is off to greener pastures, that would mean the 49ers have to go outside the building for potential minority candidates.
One name that would signal the 49ers are evolving is bringing in Karl Scott. He has been the Seattle Seahawks defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator since 2022. Scott was with Mike Zimmer and the Vikings for a year in 2021. Before that, he coached defensive backs at a small SEC school coached by Nick Saban. Scott majors in cornerbacks, and you can see how the Seahawks have grown at the position and been on top of everything this past year.
Scott has been a big proponent of quarters and has given hour-long coaching clinics on the different variations. If you’re familiar with the name Ron Roberts, you may know that Scott was his defensive coordinator. Roberts is known for using simulated pressures, mixing coverages between Quarters and Cover 2 — same as the Seahawks — and placing an overemphasis on communication and generating turnovers.
Coming from a team that lived in Nickel would be another positive. The 49ers were at their best this past season with Upton Stout on the field. It was the personnel they used the most, and the lowest success rate allowed was when Stout was on the field. Picking the brain of Scott, who just made rookie Nick Emmanwori go from borderline unplayable in coverage in college to a potential Rookie of the Year candidate, to see how to highlight a player like Stout, is one of the reasons you bring in a new, outside mind, like Scott.
That’s just one name. Perhaps Bradley has a couple of names he has in mind to bring in and get more out of the secondary. If the 49ers are going to take a step forward defensively, it’ll be because they make changes on the backend, both schematically and from a personnel perspective.
The 49ers finished with the fifth-fewest pass breakups in the NFL this past season, with 56. Seattle finished second with 40 more. The Seahawks also had 12 more interceptions as a team. In a copycat league, why not bring in somebody who has proven himself? The difference in Tariq Woolen year over year speaks for itself. Can you say the same for the Niners secondary? Not so much.
The lack of ball production has been noticeable for years, at both safety and cornerback. Expecting them to evolve under a 60-year-old defensive coordinator whose history suggests regression does not feel like taking a step forward as a franchise. Shanahan has an opportunity to change that. But will he?
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