Steve Young: “Please don’t bring in a defensive guy into San Francisco”

On Wednesday, Steve Young called into KNBR and had a 32-minute discussion with John Lund. During that discussion, Young was asked – among other things – what the 49ers need from a head coach.

Young was a fan of bringing in an offensive mind to help rebuild the 49ers. Lund threw out a few names, one of which was New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. "I'm thinking Josh McDaniels, because he got a shot, screwed it up in Denver, probably learned a lot, that's maybe the guy I'm looking at," Lund said during the conversation. The other names were Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Sean McVay and Miami Dolphins defensive coordinator Vance Joseph.

Young didn't seem to like the idea of that last name. "Please don't bring in a defensive guy into San Francisco," Young said as transcribed by our friend Kevin Jones of KNBR. "Don't bring in an offensive guy to Pittsburgh. Don't bring in an offensive guy to Chicago. It's just, there's places that have a heritage and it just doesn't resonate. And so please don't tell me we have this tremendous defensive mind that we're going to bring into San Francisco.

"I just…Say what you want to say about Jim Harbaugh when he was an offensive innovator and a great offensive coach, I loved that. I remember being on the radio being 'hallelujah' we've got somebody with what we've done in the past and who I think the 49ers kinda need to be."

"So just tell me: Josh McDaniels does fit the resume. It does fit I made a mistake but you know he's a good coach and now I can fix it. So that's gotta be number one."

"Just tell me that we're going to get someone that's seen that winning culture," Young added later. "Not just a great coach that's been entrenched in a team that has been so-so, but somebody that's actually seen it done. I think it's really important."

Young was fond of both Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan and Buffalo Bills interim head coach Anthony Lynn. Lynn interviewed with the 49ers on Wednesday and Shanahan will interview with the team on Friday.

Young was not against all defensive coaches. After all, former 49ers head coach George Seifert, who was a defensive coach, won two Super Bowls with the team in the 90s. Young shared an interesting story about Seifert.

"Defense has its own life," Young said. "George Seifert was one of the great defensive coaches. Defensive coaches, there's not a lack of sophistication, trust me. It's just a different way to look at the game. I remember George would come in with plays. He'd look at the defense we were going to play the next week. If it was the Rams, he'd say, 'I've drawn up this play. It worked perfect. This is the one that will get them every time.'

"Then we'd look at the play and be like, 'George, we don't even know what the call is. It doesn't make any sense to us.' He could not fathom it. He goes, 'Just run it.' He'd go, 'Look, just go out and run it!' So we'd go out and try to run it and then I remember vividly, we'd go back to pass and he'd go, 'Throw it now!'"

You can listen to the entire interview on KNBR.

You can read the first half of Kevin Jones' transcription here.