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Anyone reading the tea leaves knows Robert Saleh is almost certainly leaving the 49ers for a head coaching post this offseason, and he’s not going to go alone. For the past three years, San Francisco has effectively had two co-offensive coordinators behind Kyle Shanahan, both of whom are named Mike: Lafleur and McDaniel. KNBR covered those two and the rest of the 49ers staff here, after interviews with most of the staff leading up to the Super Bowl.
Mike Silver of NFL Network confirmed that widely-held expectation that Lafleur would likely join Saleh. The more interesting note is that McDaniel could join Raheem Morris, if Morris gets a head coaching job after holding the interim position with the 4-12 Atlanta Falcons this year. The former is decisively more likely than the latter.
1) If Falcons interim HC Raheem Morris, who interviewed in Atlanta Friday (and who, according to @JosinaAnderson, will interview with the Jaguars this week), gets a head coaching job, look for him to target 49ers run-game coordinator Mike McDaniel as his OC…
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) January 5, 2021
3) Meanwhile, another HC candidate, Niners DC Robert Saleh, would likely bring SF passing game coordinator Mike LaFleur as his OC. (Both LaFleur and McDaniel have been blocked in previous years by the Niners.)
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) January 5, 2021
In the past, Shanahan has prevented the two from seeking offensive coordinator positions which did not have play-calling duties. They’re already coordinators, he said. But the NFL changed that rule this year, basically allowing coaches to interview freely for any position conceivably viewed as a promotion.
McDaniel is tied to Shanahan at the hip and has been indebted to him and his family for years since his youth. He got his start as a ballboy for Mike Shanahan’s Broncos and biked two-plus hours a day to intern for the team in his summers off from Yale. Lafleur, meanwhile, is the brother of Packers head coach Matt Lafleur.
Note that the report says Morris would “target” McDaniel, while Lafleur would “likely” go with Saleh as his offensive coordinator. That’s not incidental language choice. Even if Morris gets a head coaching job and wants McDaniel, Shanahan might not be willing to lose him; and while it would be McDaniel’s choice, that relationship is tight. No one has coached with Kyle Shanahan longer than McDaniel.