One of the most outspoken players in the league for years now, Richard Sherman used about a minute of his post game presser yesterday to pound the table for an NFL team to hire Niners defensive coordinator Robert Saleh for a head coaching opportunity.
Saleh, a relative newcomer to conversations around deserving candidates for NFL head coaching opportunities, has been on NFL staffs dating back to 2005, holding a number of roles from defensive intern to defensive quality control and assistant linebackers roles for a number of years before getting an opportunity to coach the Jacksonville Jaguars linebackers in 2014. It has been a rapid rise since then, landing the defensive coordinator role for Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco in 2017.
The past few seasons the Niners have been one of the top defenses in the NFL, and Shanahan has been vocal that other teams will see what he has seen in Saleh and he will get an opportunity to lead an NFL team soon.
Will Saleh this be the off season Saleh gets his shot? His recent body of work on the defensive side of the ball, especially in the adverse times of 2020 certainly make a case. The Niners are coming off a game where they held the Rams, one of the most potent and creative offenses in the league, to just 198 yards through the air while forcing two interceptions, and that has been the story all season with a unit that has been decimated with injuries.
One current opening that makes a whole lot of sense is in Detroit, where the Lions just announced a change of leadership at GM and head coach, letting go Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia. Saleh's ethnic background is Arab-American, and he is a native of Dearborn, Michigan where he grew up just a few miles from the Detroit Lions facility. Much of his family remains in Dearborn, which is known for having the largest and most diverse Arab community in the country, to this day.
Will the Lions replace a defensive coach with a new defensive coach with roots in the Detroit area? If Richard Sherman it was Richard Sherman's call, we know what would happen as you can see him literally pound the table for his coordinator in the clip.
See Sherman's full comments below.