The 49ers aren’t just reaching out to super-experienced candidates for their defensive coordinator job. ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday reported the club has requested to interview former Commanders defensive backs coach Chris Harris.
San Francisco under head coach Kyle Shanahan has shown a willingness to bet on young, defensive-minded coaches with no coordinator experience to lead its defense. Neither Robert Saleh nor DeMeco Ryans had any time as a coordinator before joining the 49ers’ staff in that capacity.
That would be the case with Harris, 40, who has never been more than a defensive backs coach since joining the NFL in 2013. The Bears hired Harris as a defensive quality control coach before the 2013 season. He spent two years there before jumping to the Chargers in 2016 where he took on the assistant defensive backs coach job for four seasons.
Harris in 2020 got a promotion to be the defensive backs coach in Washington, where he spent the last three seasons.
An intriguing wrinkle here is that Schefter reported Harris joined the Titans staff as their passing game coordinator. A defensive coordinator job where he’s calling plays would be an upgrade though, so it can’t be ruled out that he’d vacate the Titans job to coach a loaded defense in the Bay Area.
