{"id":725160,"date":"2026-02-03T02:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725160\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T02:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:19:12","slug":"titans-hiring-49ers-assistant-gus-bradley-as-dc-per-report-nbc-sports-bay-area-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725160\/","title":{"rendered":"Titans hiring 49ers assistant Gus Bradley as DC, per report \u2013 NBC Sports Bay Area &#038; California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Weeks of speculation that 49ers assistant coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/coaches\/BradGu0.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gus Bradley<\/a> would be promoted might prove to be correct\u2014just not in the manner some envisioned.<\/p>\n<p>The Tennessee Titans are hiring Bradley as their defensive coordinator, ESPN&#8217;s Adam Schefter reported Monday, citing a source, where he joins new head coach\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/coaches\/SaleRo0.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Saleh<\/a>\u00a0after each spent the 2025 NFL season in San Francisco.<\/p>\n<p>After Saleh\u2019s second stint as 49ers DC ended with his acceptance of the Titans job, rumors floated that Bradley was the clubhouse favorite to replace him. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/coaches\/ShanKy0.htm\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/coaches\/ShanKy0.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Shanahan<\/a> later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsbayarea.com\/nfl\/san-francisco-49ers\/kyle-shanahan-gus-bradley-defensive-coordinator\/1909421\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">added to the buzz<\/a> during a postseason press conference in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn&#8217;t say it\u2019s a real wide net, but I mean, Gus is the obvious one to everyone\u00a0and is to us too,\u201d Shanahan told reporters.\u00a0\u201cGus would be the main internal candidate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, San Francisco hired former Falcons head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/coaches\/MorrRa0.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Raheem Morris<\/a> for the position, leaving Bradley free to join Saleh in Nashville.<\/p>\n<p>Bradley, who served as assistant head coach with the 49ers in 2025, first established himself on the NFL scene as defensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks\u2019 fledgling \u201cLegion of Boom\u201d defense. He left Seattle in 2013 to become the head coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, lasting four seasons before returning to the DC ranks with the Los Angeles Chargers, Las Vegas Raiders and Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n<p>With San Francisco in 2025, Bradley <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsbayarea.com\/nfl\/san-francisco-49ers\/49ers-news\/gus-bradley-defensive-coordinator\/1909062\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">worked closely with Saleh<\/a> in attempting to bring a young, injury-riddled defense up to speed. And while the results weren\u2019t always pretty, the process clearly convinced Saleh that Bradley should be his right-hand man in Tennessee.<\/p>\n<p>As for 2026, the 49ers are counting on Morris\u2014and the return of unit cornerstones Fred Warner and Nick Bosa\u2014to elevate the team\u2019s defense back to Super Bowl contender status. San Francisco recorded the fewest sacks in the NFL in 2025 and finished 20th in yards allowed per game, numbers that must improve if Shanahan and company are to reclaim NFC superiority.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/49ers-talk-with-matt-maiocco.simplecast.com\/episodes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weeks of speculation that 49ers assistant coach Gus Bradley would be promoted might prove to be correct\u2014just not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[7,13139,6,6043,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-725160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-gus-bradley","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-robert-saleh","12":"tag-tennessee","13":"tag-tennessee-titans","14":"tag-tennesseetitans","15":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116004308510764565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}