SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers are hiring Raheem Morris as their new defensive coordinator, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Sunday.
Morris will become the team’s fifth coordinator in as many years. He replaces Robert Saleh, who departed to become the head coach of the Tennessee Titans.
This is the second year in a row in which the Niners had to wait out the head coaching carousel before landing their man. Last year, they waited for Saleh amid interest from the Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders.
Morris was considered a finalist for the Arizona Cardinals head coaching job, which went to Mike LaFleur, the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator.
Morris and 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan are close friends from previous coaching stops with Tampa Bay (2004-05), Washington (2012) and, most recently, the Atlanta Falcons in 2015-16.
The Niners bring Morris aboard after he spent the past two seasons as Atlanta’s head coach. He previously held that position in Tampa Bay from 2009 to 2011.
This will be Morris’ third professional stint as a defensive coordinator, having done the job in Atlanta in 2020 and for the Los Angeles Rams in 2021-23.
Morris coordinated a Rams defense that helped win Super Bowl LVI.
The Niners, meanwhile, are looking for some stability at the coordinator position after having gone from DeMeco Ryans to Steve Wilks to Nick Sorensen to Saleh in the past four years.
“I definitely don’t like doing this for a fifth year in a row,” Shanahan said Jan. 21. “I really would like to go on vacation, but these D-coordinators keep making me have my family wait and get mad at me for it.”
Despite season-ending injuries to star defensive end Nick Bosa (ACL) and linebacker Fred Warner (ankle), Saleh’s defense finished 13th in points allowed and 20th in yards allowed in 2025.
At his end-of-season news conference, Shanahan indicated that defensive assistant Gus Bradley was the team’s primary in-house candidate. Bradley received an interview, but when Morris didn’t get a head coaching job elsewhere, he moved to the top of the list.
The 49ers also interviewed former Browns, Saints and Broncos defensive coordinator Joe Woods for the job.
