The San Francisco 49ers are still in hot pursuit of former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley to be their defensive coordinator, per Mike Silver of NFL Media. The 49ers have reportedly upped their offer to try to entice Bradley, who originally only wanted to work for the 49ers if they hired Seattle Seahawks assistant head coach and offensive line coach Tom Cable.
Rebuffed once by Gus Bradley (who wanted to work for Tom Cable), the 49ers have continued to pursue him for DC job, upping their offer...
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) January 20, 2017
Earlier today, Benjamin Albright reported that Bradley is still deciding between the 49ers and the Los Angeles Chargers, who are also interested in him for their defensive coordinator position.
He's down to Chargers/Niners no decision made yet. https://t.co/fq9jrU6DNt
— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) January 20, 2017
In 2011 under Bradley, the Seahawks defense ranked 7th in points allowed, 9th in total yards allowed, 11th against the pass, and 15th against the run. In 2012, the unit ranked 1st in points allowed, 4th in total yards allowed, 6th against the pass, and 10th against the run.
This comes after the 49ers inquired about possibly bringing back Vic Fangio, who served as the team's defensive coordinator under Jim Harbaugh and currently holds the same role with the Chicago Bears. Since he is currently under contract with Chicago, the Bears said no.
Of course, the 49ers are still without a general manager and head coach. At least, officially they are. Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan is widely believed to be a lock for the team's head coaching vacancy, but the 49ers cannot officially make an offer until his current team is done with their playoff push. They face the Green Bay Packers on Sunday in the NFC Championship Game.
The delay has been viewed as a drawback because other teams with new head coaches have had a head start on building their staffs.
Shanahan is expected to meet with the 49ers for a second time next week. The team hopes to get him to speak with general manager candidates in order to help decide on the perfect general manager and head coach pairing. The team had planned to have Packers executives Eliot Wolf and Brian Gutekunst in for those meetings, but both withdrew their names from contention this week.
That leaves just George Paton of the Minnesota Vikings and perhaps Terry McDonough of the Arizona Cardinals as the known remaining candidates for the vacant general manager job.
