In retrospect, Nick Sorensen was doomed from the start.
He had never been a defensive coordinator in his life, and he had to take over a veteran team with Super Bowl aspirations that had zero time to wait for him to learn on the job. And he had lots to learn.
When the 49ers hired Robert Saleh as their defensive coordinator in 2017, he never had held that position, either. But the 49ers were a young, rebuilding team back then. Now they're much different.
That's why Kyle Shanahan is looking to hire a more experienced defensive coordinator this time around.
“Yeah, I think some of the stuff that, just where we're at, some of the decisions that we’ve got to make and things like that, I think having the experience of going through this before, building things before, I think is definitely a bonus for me," Shanahan said on Wednesday. "It helps me with some stuff. So that's stuff I will look into. But again, you always, regardless, you don't want to put just any handcuffs on your decision. You're going to always try to figure out the best one. So, you’ve got ideas going into that, but just being so early I'm going to have an opportunity to talk to a number of guys too, so we'll see what that leads us to.”
I'm guessing the 49ers would love to hire Saleh if he doesn't get a head coaching job. Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised if they were to hire Jeff Ulbrich or Gus Bradley, two coaches who have extensive coordinator experience.
