SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The San Francisco 49ers’ experiment of bringing in a defensive coordinator from the outside didn’t work out, with the team firing Steve Wilks after just one season.
Now they’re counting on the internal promotion of Nick Sorensen into that role — with a dose of outside perspective from former Chargers head coach Brandon Staley — to get the Niners back to performing at a dominant level defensively after taking a little step back last season.
“We all know the standard here and we all want to win, we all want to play great defense and that’s the expectation,” Sorensen said Friday in his first public remarks since being hired earlier this offseason. “But I have that on myself. Our coaches do, our players do. What is said, I’m not really worried about it. I just know what we want to get done and what I want to get done.”
The 49ers didn’t reach that standard last season under Wilks that had been set under previous coordinators Robert Saleh and DeMeco Ryans, especially in the playoffs when they got gashed on the ground against Green Bay and Detroit and then wilted late in a Super Bowl loss to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Niners ranked first overall in most key metrics in 2022 under Ryans. Last season under Wilks, they were were third in points allowed and 10th in more advanced efficiency metrics like Expected Points Added.
Wilks struggled to adapt to the system coach Kyle Shanahan wanted to use, and the defense had issues all season against the run and came up short in the playoffs, leading to the decision to make a change.
That led to the promotion of Sorensen, who moved from his role as a passing game specialist to being in charge of the whole defense for the first time in his coaching career.
Sorensen initially joined San Francisco’s staff as a defensive assistant in 2022, working with linebackers when Johnny Holland was out dealing with cancer. Sorensen also has run weekly meetings focused on creating takeaways and limiting turnovers during his time in San Francisco.
Sorensen previously served as special teams coach in Jacksonville in 2021 and spent eight seasons in Seattle as an assistant for the secondary and special teams, where the Seahawks used a similar defensive scheme to the 49ers.
“It helps that he knows the system and has been around it,” All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner said. “We just have to get better at the fundamentals and technique of what we do as well as implementing some tweaks in there as well, because we have been running the same thing for a long time. Teams know what we’re running. We’re not afraid of that. But there do have to be some tweaks in there to make sure that we are switching things up a little bit, and I think Nick is going to do an amazing job.”
Shanahan also made another big move on the defensive staff, hiring Staley as a defensive assistant. Staley had been coordinator for the Rams for one season in 2020 when they were the stingiest defense in the league and had three less successful seasons as coach of the Chargers before getting fired last December.
Staley has a more amorphous role with the Niners, where he isn’t responsible for one position group or the entire defense but is more of a resource for an untested coordinator.
“It’s more holistic,” Sorensen said of Staley’s role. “He’s been helping me overall. He’s been involved with pretty much everything, as far as, ‘Here is where we did this’ and I’ve been kind of talking him through how we play certain things, watching things throughout the league and what other teams do. Some of the things that he did, asking ‘Would this fit or would it not fit in our defense?’ … He’s been more connected with the DBs and the nickels, but he also has experience elsewhere with defensive ends and outside linebackers. But with the staff that we have, I think for me it’s going to be really helpful that he’s done it before and he’s had success and he’s been a head coach as well.”
Sorensen said Staley’s influence could help the 49ers’ defense evolve but the standards of being an attacking defense that plays fast will not change.
“We always are looking to evolve in certain ways. I think there’s things throughout the league that you see and it’s like, ‘Will this work? Will it not?’” he said. “But as far as what we do, our bread and butter, we’re going to do that.”
Alex Smith believes bad luck played into 49ers’ Super Bowl losses
Alex Smith believes bad luck played into 49ers’ Super Bowl losses originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
There are a handful of reasons why the 49ers might have lost Super Bowl LVIII to the Kansas City Chiefs.
San Francisco’s defense couldn’t stop superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense when it mattered most. The 49ers’ wide receivers struggled to get separation in Kansas City’s zone defense, leading to empty offensive possessions in the second half.
However, sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way.
Former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith joined KNBR 680’s “Murph & Markus” on Friday morning and was asked about San Francisco failing to win the Super Bowl after coming close on multiple occasions over the years and if they have a problem getting over the hump and winning the “big game.”
“It’s a good problem. You can take six plays from this last Super Bowl and if the ball just bounces a different way on one of them, the Niners are holding up the Lombardi,” Smith said. “You got to keep getting opportunities, and there is a certain amount of luck in this, and I think unfortunately they’ve been on the wrong side of it a few times. And Kyle [Shanahan] has been on the wrong side of it even more.
“This kind of sustained success they’re having, that is so rare. It’s so rare, it’s so hard to do and they just need to keep knocking at the door. And they’re going to get it.”
Shanahan, as a coach and offensive coordinator, has been on the losing end of three Super Bowls after his team held fourth-quarter leads. Widely regarded as one of the best coaches in the NFL, Shanahan — similar to the early career of former Philadelphia Eagles and current Chiefs coach Andy Reid — has come away empty-handed in the playoffs.
“And it’s so funny that Kyle and the Niners have lost twice to the Chiefs and Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, because this was kind of Andy’s thing for so long, all the sustained success he had in Philly but couldn’t win the big game,” Smith added. “It kind of reminds me a little bit of what Kyle’s going through.
“Clearly everybody recognized their offensive geniuses, some of the best coaches in the NFL and couldn’t get it done. And all of a sudden you finally do and now Andy’s on the Mount Rushmore of coaches. It can change very quickly and I think it’s going to for Kyle and this Niners team.”
Reid posted a 130-93-1 record in 14 seasons as the Eagles coach. Philadelphia made the playoffs nine times during his tenure and consistently was one of the best teams in the league. But Reid never won a Super Bowl.
Until seven years later when he finally hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating Shanahan and the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV. He went on to win two more against the Eagles in 2023 and of course San Francisco again in 2024.
Peyton Manning says Bill Belichick will appear on every ManningCast this season
Bill Belichick will make more than frequent appearances on the ManningCast. The former Patriots coach will be on all of them.
Via BarrettSportsMedia.com, Manning said in a recent appearance on Pat McAfee’s show that Belichick will appear on every 2024 episode of the alternate to Monday Night Football. Belichick also is slated to appear every Monday on McAfee’s show.
Belichick will show up early in each game, likely in the first quarter.
It’s a win-win. There will be interest in what Belichick has to say. And, in order for teams to be interested in hiring Belichick, he needs to make himself more likable. Or, as the case may be, likable.
Plenty of fans aren’t interested in a 70-something curmudgeon who has achieved little since Tom Brady left the Patriots. Belichick has yet to be — and quite possibly won’t be — pressed on the ill-advised decision in 2022 to put a career defensive coach in charge of the offense.
Even if it won’t be enough to get Belichick a head-coaching job in 2025, he will enhance the coverage of the game for 2024. Especially if he’s willing to cut through the noise and call people out for doing dumb things.
Like putting a career defensive coach in charge of the offense.
Bears naming Caleb Williams starter obvious, yet important signal of franchise growth
Bears naming Caleb Williams starter obvious, yet important signal of franchise growth originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Everyone in the football world has known that Caleb Williams will be the next starting quarterback for months, but on Friday Bears head coach Matt Eberflus made it officially official. When asked if Williams would be the starter from day one, Eberflus eliminated any doubt on the topic– not that there was any doubt.
“No conversation. He’s the starter.”
It was the most “no duh” moment of Friday’s start to rookie minicamp, but it was also an important moment. Things have not always been this way at Halas Hall and Eberflus’ affirmation is the latest signal that things are different with him and GM Ryan Poles running the show.
This isn’t going to be like the Bears’ development of Mitchell Trubisky, who had to split reps with Mike Glennon to start his career. Nor is it going to be like Justin Fields’ development. Fields similarly missed out on first-team action in training camp because the team wanted to get Andy Dalton up to speed while Fields watched, listened and learned.
The idea behind each plan was for the rookie to develop on the sidelines, absorbing info along the way. It was a plan that worked in the NFL for years to great effect. For a variety of reasons it didn’t work for the Bears.
Trubisky was finally pressed into duty when Glennon threw five interceptions and fumbled another five times over the team’s first four games in 2017. Fields was forced to play when Dalton suffered a bone bruise in Week 2. Each quarterback looked unprepared for the moment, in part because the team had spent so much time preparing other guys.
Unfortunate injury luck, poor free agency decision making or bad planning? You decide.
Even Rex Grossman had to wait his turn behind both Kordell Stewart and Chris Chandler in 2003, when the Bears used the No. 22 overall pick to make him their starter of the future.
The last Bears rookie QB to start in Week 1 was fourth-round pick Kyle Orton in 2005, and that was only because Grossman got hurt in the preseason. In fact, since the NFL and AFL merged in 1970 the Bears have never started a rookie quarterback in Week 1 on purpose, because that was the plan. Williams will be the first.
Back to Eberflus and Poles and year three of their program. In short time, the two turned over the roster almost entirely and built an ascending defense. They’ve added loads of young talent on the offensive side of the ball, and brought together a collection of playmakers rarely seen in Chicago. Now they have finally chosen their quarterback, and they’re going to turn him loose.
In the weeks leading up to the draft, and the days after the draft, Poles and Eberflus had to field several questions about why this new quarterback would pan out when all the others had failed. It’s a fair question considering no city is more familiar with a QB carousel than Chicago. But after Poles was asked about it for the umpteenth time, he was visibly annoyed.
“The history’s the history,” Poles said just hours after drafting Williams. “Like I’m kind of done talking about it. You go back so much all the time and those days are over.”
Poles was brought in to change the way things were done around Halas Hall. He and Eberflus have specifically targeted players who match the culture they want to build. And they’re not going to do things just because that’s the way they’ve always been done.
Naming Caleb Williams the starter in May was a no brainer for the team and any “competition” between him and Tyson Bagent, or him and Brett Rypien would have been a competition in name only. Yet, in the past it wouldn’t be surprising if a kangaroo competition was declared, even if there was no shot for anyone else to win.
Not with these Bears, though. They’re not running from expectations and they’re not putting up a front. They’re ready to roll with the No. 1 overall pick, because obviously, that’s why they chose him.
In the end the result might be the same. Williams could flame out in 2028 just like Fields and Trubisky and countless others flamed out before him. But as Poles said, that history is history. Williams is going boldly where no Bears quarterback has gone before, to the top of the depth chart on Day 1.
New 49ers DC Sorensen details D-line competition this summer
New 49ers DC Sorensen details D-line competition this summer originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The 49ers’ defensive line is anchored by Nick Bosa setting the edge and Javon Hargrave on the interior, but there will be quite a few new faces when the group lines up for the 2024 NFL season.
The most notable change in the team’s trenches is the departure of Arik Armstead, who spent nine seasons in the Bay Area before signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars for a much more lucrative deal than the 49ers were willing to pay.
Other departures include Javon Kinlaw (New York Jets), Clelin Ferrell (Washington Commanders), Chase Young (New Orleans Saints), and Randy Gregory (Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
New defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen is excited about the free agents the 49ers signed to multi-year deals on the defensive line and believes that the unit’s production will only improve.
“We were fortunate to have a lot of these guys like Arik for a long time,” Sorensen said Friday. “[He] did a lot of great things for us, but we did replace him and J.K. and some of the guys we had last year with some guys that we are really excited about.”
Defensive line coach Kris Kocurek will be looking to improve the production of his group, which contributed to 48 quarterback sacks and 122 hits in 2024. While most of the defensive metrics were toward the top of the league, there is much room for improvement and the group hopes to return to the dominance they showed during the 2019 season.
“It’s not like last year when we had guys that were one year and gone,” Sorensen said. “It’s someone that can get in with our system with Kocurek and really be aggressive and attack as far as changing things we are going to be aggressive and do what we do and being an attacking defense.”
Here is the 49ers’ current defensive line roster:
Returning:
Nick Bosa
Javon Hargrave
Drake Jackson
Alex Barrett
Robert Beal
Austin Bryant
Kalia Davis
Kevin Givens
T.Y. McGill
Free Agents:
Maliek Collins
Jordan Elliott
Leonard Floyd
Yetur Gross-Matos
Earnest Brown
Raymond Johnson III
Sam Okuayinonu
Undrafted free agent:
Evan Anderson
The production of Bosa and Hargrave speaks for itself, and the pair remains the stars of the defensive line, but who steps up in the coming season is yet to be determined. The 49ers signed seven linemen during free agency with the primary goal of getting after the quarterback.
Leonard Floyd signed a two-year, $20 million contract to play opposite of Bosa after spending four seasons with the Chicago Bears who drafted the Georgia edge rusher with the No. 9 overall pick of the 2016 NFL Draft.
The veteran pass rusher spent the next three seasons with the Los Angeles Rams before signing a one-year agreement with the Buffalo Bills for the 2023 season. Floyd has been consistent over his last four years with an average of 10 sacks per season, not to mention incredible durability on the field with well over 900 total snaps in each season from 2019-2022.
Yetur Gross-Matos joins the 49ers after signing a two-year $18 million deal after playing four seasons with the Carolina Panthers. The second-round pick (No. 38) had his best statistical season in 2023 with a career-high five sacks, five hits and nine hurries.
Gross-Matos is set to be seen on the edge rotationally with Floyd, and if Bosa needs a break. The Penn State product was on the field for 465 snaps in 2023 after recording 847 plays in 2022.
On the interior of the line, Hargrave will be joined by Jordan Elliott and Maliek Collins. Like Floyd and Gross-Matos, Collins is coming off a career-best season with the Houston Texans, recording seven sacks, 13 hits and 28 hurries according to PFF.com.
Collins spent his first four seasons with the Dallas Cowboys after being drafted in the third round (No. 67) of the 2016 draft and then joined the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020.
“Floyd and Maliek on the inside and getting Jordan Elliott as well,” Sorensen said. “Yetur Gross-Matos, we’ve got some young guys mixed in with veteran guys that have really performed and we are excited about, also that we have them for a couple of years.”
The 49ers also saw enough from Evan Anderson to offer guaranteed money to the defensive tackle as an undrafted free agent. The Florida Atlantic product closed out four seasons with a career-best 18 total pressures that included five sacks, one hit and 12 hurries.
Anderson will learn along with the remainder of the defensive line group that will be competing for time on the field throughout training camp. Sorensen sees that as a great aspect of his inaugural season as a coordinator where there will not be sweeping changes in the scheme.
“We are always looking to evolve in certain ways,” Sorensen said. “I think there’s things throughout the league that you see and it’s like will it work, will it not? But as far as what we do, our bread and butter, we are going to do that.”
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