The San Francisco 49ers will have a new defensive coordinator for the fifth consecutive season since DeMeco Ryans left for the Houston Texans’ head coaching job in 2022, and the unit has gotten worse every year since his departure.
Raheem Morris is tasked with reversing that trend, and The Athletic’s Mike Jones believes doing so is one of the biggest questions facing San Francisco heading into 2026.
Morris’ resume suggests he’s built for it. Four years ago, he helped the Los Angeles Rams win a Super Bowl as defensive coordinator, guiding one of the league’s most disruptive units. He also has previous ties to the 49ers organization and spent time as an offensive assistant under Kyle Shanahan before returning to coach San Francisco’s defense. After two seasons as the Atlanta Falcons’ head coach, where Jeff Ulbrich ran a pressure-heavy man-to-man scheme as defensive coordinator, Morris now reunites with his longtime friend Shanahan to try to restore a defense that carried the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance five years ago before eroding under coordinator turnover, age, injuries and free-agent losses.
Morris comes in with the mission of restoring the unit to its former glory. He’s an aggressive play-caller and a creative chess master. The 49ers are hoping his expertise, along with the healthy returns of pass rushers Nick Bosa and Mykel Williams, growth from young defensive linemen Alfred Collins and CJ West, and the trade for Osa Odighizuwa, the drafting of pass rusher Romello Height, lead to a revival of this unit.
Longtime NFL analyst Greg Cosell discussed the uncertainty surrounding Morris’ scheme on “The Larry Krueger Show,” citing Morris’ varied background as a reason for doubt about which direction he’ll take the defense. Cosell contrasted that uncertainty with the clearly defined approach of Robert Saleh, the last coordinator to have real sustained success in San Francisco.
“Just to take a step back, I think the Robert Saleh approach — and that’s pretty defined in what Robert Saleh does — is that it’s the wide nine. It’s all based on your defensive line. You play a high percentage of zone coverage, and it’s zone coverage with vision and landmarks. In other words, it’s not a matchup-type zone; it’s vision and landmarks,” Cosell said. :Robert Saleh had his underneath defenders — and Fred Warner was the absolute best in the league at it — where they pretty much drop to a landmark and have a head on a swivel to see the routes, but they’re not matching routes in terms of matching a receiver. So we’ll see what Raheem wants to do.”
Morris will have significantly more talent to work with than his predecessor did during last season’s collapse. San Francisco finished with an NFL-low 20 sacks and ranked 30th in pressure rate in 2025, a decline fueled largely by injuries. Nick Bosa played just three games before a knee injury ended his season, first-round rookie Mykel Williams lasted only nine games, and Warner missed significant time with a dislocated and broken ankle. All three are expected back and healthy for 2026, alongside linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who returns on a one-year deal after he spent 2025 with the Denver Broncos.
San Francisco also retooled the defensive front this offseason, as Jones noted, with the trade a 2026 third-round pick to Dallas for interior lineman Osa Odighizuwa and the drafting of edge rusher Romello Height and defensive tackle Gracen Halton. The secondary added cornerbacks Nate Hobbs and Jack Jones, too. Those additions offset the losses of edge rusher Bryce Huff, who retired, along with departures on the interior line in Yetur Gross-Matos, Jordan Elliott, Kevin Givens and Kalia Davis.
The stakes for getting it right are obvious given how the defense’s late-season collapse derailed San Francisco’s 2025 campaign. The unit allowed 24 or more points in four of the 49ers’ final six games, a stretch capped by a 41-point outburst surrendered to the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round that ended San Francisco’s season.
On paper, the pieces are in place for Morris to have the healthiest, most talented roster of any 49ers defensive coordinator since Ryans. Whether Morris can translate that talent into the identity that once defined this defense will go a long way toward determining whether the 49ers contend for a championship in 2026.
This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: Raheem Morris’ defense is one of 49ers’ biggest question marks in 2026
Reporting by Oliver G., Rams Wire / Niners Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Oliver G., Rams Wire | USA TODAY Network
