It’s been a whiplash offseason for the 49ers and that’s before any real player-focused business has been done. Aaron Rodgers looks poised to potentially hold up the quarterback trade market, and with Mike McDaniel’s departure, there’s been more turnover in the 49ers’ coaching ranks than Kyle Shanahan has ever experienced in one offseason.
Shanahan, staff won’t attend NFL Combine
The NFL Combine is not at all what it once was. It used to be a stomping ground for any and all who were important in the league, providing an opportunity to negotiate under-the-table deals, rub shoulders with agents and get a first real look at the incoming draft class.
In some respects, that still exists. The element of intermingling with agents and talking under-the-table deals is still a very real component. But the actual combine itself has lost a bit of its luster.
Teams now have on-field tracking data for just about every player, and most coaches and evaluators tend to find that information more valuable than a 40 time.
Kyle Shanahan is one of those coaches, and he and his staff will not attend this year’s combine, per NBC Sports’ Matt Maiocco. Shanahan’s not alone; his NFC West counterpart Sean McVay and former defensive coordinator Robert Saleh will not, either.
Shanahan can work from home while a likely convoy of John Lynch, Adam Peters, Paraag Marathe and other scouts get the groundwork done.
Legendary RB coach Bobby Turner to depart
This one is not a major stunner given that Bobby Turner is 72 years old, but it’s still a massive blow to the 49ers’ staff. Turner is one of the greatest running back coaches in NFL history, and he’s been coaching for nearly 50 years since starting out at Kokomo High School in Indiana.
He’s been with both Mike and Kyle Shanahan, spending a stunning 14 years as the Denver Broncos’ running backs coach from 1994-2009, before joining Mike Shanahan in Washington for what turned out to be an ignominious stint there.
After that, he was Kyle Shanahan’s running backs coach with the Atlanta Falcons from 2015-16. He stayed with Kyle Shanahan from the start of his tenure with the 49ers.
But according to The Athletic’s Matt Barrows, Turner will not return. It’s more related to self-care than anything else. Turner took the 2014 season off to undergo knee surgery and Barrows reports this is a similar case.
That leaves an irreplaceable void in the running back room. Turner was a genius and as well-versed in the crucial, split-second details that can make or break a run. His running backs had the utmost respect for him and frequently attributed their success to his knowledge.
The addition of Anthony Lynn, a former Mike Shanahan running back as an assistant head coach, could go a long way to filling that void.
Scangarello out, but two reported defensive additions
A huge swathe of the 49ers’ coaching staff is departing this season. Mike McDaniel took the Dolphins’ head coach job and took former tight ends coach Jon Embree and wide receivers coach Wes Welker with him. As mentioned above, Bobby Turner won’t be back.
Assistant offensive line coach Butch Barry departed for the Broncos’ offensive line job, and the other assistant offensive line coach, Zach Yenser, took the same role at the University of Kentucky.
Yenser will be under a familiar system, though. Quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello will take the offensive coordinator job there.
To recap, that’s the offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach, running backs coach, wide receivers coach, tight ends coach and two offensive line assistants all gone.
Thus far, there are a few replacements already in focus. Former offensive quality control coach Brian Fleury will be promoted to tight ends coach and offensive quality-control coach Leonard Hankerson will take wide receivers.
It’s unclear if there’s a desire to replace McDaniel as offensive coordinator, but Anthony Lynn clearly has experience managing an offense with expertise in managing running backs.
Given that three offensive quality-control coaches have been promoted to position coaches, that leaves Bobby Slowik primed to make a move up, too, with the quarterbacks coach role seemingly the most likely. He’s been with Shanahan since starting out in Washington and was the 49ers’ passing game specialist last season after starting out as a defensive quality control coach in 2017-18.
As the offensive coaching staff shakes out, it’s a reminder there are moves on the defensive side, too. Former Giants defensive coordinator James Bettcher was a defensive assistant for the 49ers last season, but was hired by the Bengals as their linebackers coach.
Per Bruce Feldman, LSU graduate assistant Asauni Rufus will join the 49ers as a defensive quality-control coach, a role that’s often been a launching pad for promotions, and one Shanahan tends to value highly.
Rufus was a three-time All-Mountain West defensive back at Nevada, and was a special teams analyst at Notre Dame, then a quality-control coach at Vanderbilt before briefly re-joining Brian Kelly’s staff at LSU.
There’s also the reported addition of former NFL defensive back and longtime Seahawks coach Nick Sorensen, who was an assistant special teams coach for the first half of his eight-year stint in Seattle, before becoming more defense-oriented.
According to Aaron Wilson, he’ll be hired as a defensive assistant, a move that was well-received on Twitter by former 49ers corner D.J. Reed, who is a free agent.
Lastly, there’s former Michigan graduate assistant Stephen Adegoke, who, according to Matt Zenitz, will also take on a quality control role. He was a defensive back at at Mississippi State as recently as 2018.
That’s two hires just out of college and another who’s a fairly young in-division hire with in-game NFL experience, with time in special teams and defensive roles. That’s in addition to Klay Kubiak, whose father Kyle Shanahan came up under. He was in that defensive quality control role last season.