SANTA CLARA — Robert Saleh is ready to work with the six defensive members of the 49ers' 2025 rookie class, who all have a chance to earn playing time during the 2025 NFL season.
“Excited to get them out there this weekend for sure,” Saleh said during his first press conference with local media on Thursday. “Really cool group of kids that are coming in. All of them are going to have an opportunity to compete to get significant playing time this year.
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WATCH HERE“It’s exciting to just get the injection of youth along with a lot of the veterans we have on this football team. It’s exciting, it’s going to be a lot of fun to work with them.”
The 49ers' defense struggled through a 6-11 2024 season, but Saleh believes there wasn’t one element of the game that caused the downturn of the once-vaunted group. He's confident that one remedy will be San Francisco's talented group of rookies stepping on the field this week.
"I think it’s going to come just with all the youth,” Saleh said of what will improve the defense’s performance. “There’s a lot of empathy for what happened to the group last year. There are a lot of things. Through the halfway point, this defense was playing some really good football and there were a lot of injuries and the wheels kind of fell off during the last few weeks of the season.
“So for the coaching staff and the players, there is a lot of empathy, ‘Man, you were doing your best. It just didn’t work out.’ But you still see it all. These guys played their butts off. I thought Nick [Bosa] and those guys did a really nice job and it’s just bringing in this youth and getting them caught up to what the standard is and doing our best to uphold it.”
Part of what could help the 49ers' defense are the three defensive linemen they drafted in Mykell Williams, Alfred Collins and C.J. West. San Francisco has been searching for a bookend for Bosa as well as players who can consistently stop the run. They believe that the answer could be in part, Collins and West.
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Saleh added that one of the reasons he returned to the Bay Area as a coordinator was the collaboration that led to the 49ers' first five picks of the 2025 NFL Draft falling on the defensive side of the ball.
Without naming names, the former New York Jets head coach emphasized that very few organizations have the same process the 49ers do when it comes to reaching a consensus on their draft board.
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SIGN UP “That was the other reason why it was exciting to come back,” Saleh said. “Most buildings, maybe spend a week in terms of communication between [the] scouting department and coaching staff, with regards to the draft.
“This organization will spend 3-4 weeks just grinding on tape, offense, defense, special teams and going deep into the seventh round, undrafted free-agent type players. And I think that’s why this organization has so much success finding Day 3 picks that come to fruition. Even undrafted free agents that end up having success in this league.”
Saleh explained that plenty of offensive players with higher draft grades came off the board before the 49ers had a chance to select them, but he will nevertheless take all of the talented defenders he can get.
