Nostalgia has a strong pull. Look around you. The world's full of sequels, remakes, and reboots, and most of them do well. It's comforting to remember a time when things were better.
The San Francisco 49ers look about to pull off their own nostalgia hit, with various reports indicating that former defensive coordinator Robert Saleh will be re-offered his old job, should he fail to fill any of the head coaching vacancies currently available around the NFL.
He has interviews with both the Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders lined up, but most reports actually have it that he would be favoured to land in San Francisco,something doubled down on by Dan Graziano in his ESPN Insider report on Thursday.
Great, right? After all, Saleh was the man behind a great 49ers defence in 2019, where their No. 2 rank in yardage allowed and No. 8 rank in points allowed, coupled with a No. 1 passing defense, helped lead the team to a narrow Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Hmm, maybe not.
As much as Saleh's 2019 defense was tremendous and memorable, it's also fair to point out that not every year under Saleh was a bed of roses.
In fact, it's perhaps fair to point out that it may actually have been an outlier:
With the 49ers:
2017: 24th in yardage, 25th in points allowed
2018: 13th in yardage, 28th in points allowed
2019: 2nd in yardage, 8th in points allowed
2020: 5th in yardage, 17th in points allowed
With the Jets:
2021: 32nd in yardage, 32nd in points allowed
2022: 4th in yardage, 4th in points allowed
2023: 3rd in yardage, 12th in points allowed
2024: 3rd in yardage, 20th in points allowed
Other than that famous 2019 season, Saleh's numbers as a coordinator are middling at best. For context, Nick Sorensen was just fired for going eighth in yardage and 29th in points allowed (a.k.a. a mirror image of at least two of Saleh's seasons with the 49ers).
In general, Saleh's teams seem competent at preventing yardage, but not great at preventing teams from scoring.
A bend-but-still-break defense, perhaps.
You can write off his 2017 season in San Francisco and 2021 season with the Jets as being building years -- in both cases, he didn't have a great roster to work with -- but the others are harder to understand, particularly given the rosters at his disposal.
Frankly, his best season as the 49ers defensive coordinator just happened to coincide with multiple players being at the top of their game or ascending.
On the defensive line, for instance, he had the best unit the team has seen in years; he had the rookie season of Nick Bosa, the peak of Arik Armstead, the last season of DeForest Buckner, as well as a decently injury-free effort from Dee Ford.
Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw were probably at their physical peak at linebacker, while Jimmie Ward, Jaquiski Tartt and Richard Sherman, among others, formed a solid and experienced defensive backfield.
However, despite returning much of the same team next year, injuries to Bosa and Ford among others derailed the defense, the nadir possibly being the Monday Night Football game against the Buffalo Bills, where Josh Allen shredded the defense for 35 first downs and four touchdowns.
To be fair to Saleh, most teams would struggle to absorb the loss of key players, but one of the biggest criticisms you could make of him as a defensive coordinator was his inability to adapt to his personnel. Once the big hitters like Bosa or Armstead were missing, he was largely unable to scheme around it.
For example, it's hard to think of a reserve player who made much noise on defense in the Saleh years. Defensive line rotations, for example, were much reduced from what the 49ers scheme up today. It's also hard to think of a player who Saleh actually developed.
That's in stark contrast to his successor, DeMeco Ryans, who made better players out of many middling free-agency signings. It's one of the reasons the 49ers bargain-basement free agency shopping often worked, particularly when coupled with the work of defensive line coach Kris Kocurek.
Saleh would, therefore if he does indeed accept the job, be joining a 49ers team quite low on talent compared to his best units. Bosa and Warner are still there, and the development of Deommodore Lenoir into a top-level cornerback will be welcome.
But, outside of that, there isn't much to cheer.
The D-line rotation is thin and largely unproven, the linebacking core is shrouded in uncertainty, particularly if Greenlaw does depart, while the defensive backfield has promising young players like Malik Mustapha, but no obvious answer at safety outside him, with Ji'Ayir Brown coming off a poor season and Talanoa Hufanga (who had a middling end to the season himself) a pending free agent.
Given the side he'll potentially be inheriting, nothing about Saleh's history, either with the 49ers or the Jets, suggests instant success.
In fact, if anything, it suggests the opposite.
In fairness to Saleh, there may be deeper concerns about the scheme. There's enough evidence to suggest that 49ers' Cover 3 based defense actually requires top level talent to succeed. The best example of that comes from the Niners' bitter rivals. Consider the Seattle Seahawks, the defenses' forebearers, and how they fell off once the likes of Sherman, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor were no longer at the peak of their powers.
Also, the NFL moves along, and there's a decent-to-good chance that the defensive scheme just isn't as effective any more, particularly as the league evolves to meet schematic challenges. After two turgid seasons on defense, it would undoubtedly do the team do the team good to have a new voice in the room, and some fresh ideas.
That should probably involve an entirely new voice, and possibly even a rethink of the scheme. No viewing of numbers nor an objective view of the 49ers' defense's history under Saleh suggests that he'll be the right answer.
Perhaps I'll be wrong, and Robert Saleh will buck the trend of 'you can never go home again' and provide a shot in the arm to a defense that desperately needs it. Unfortunately, I think it's much more likely that we'll be sitting here in a year's time spouting the axiom sometimes attributed to Yogi Berra.
"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be..."
