Every single 49ers player, coach and staffer was overly excited for Robert Saleh’s return as defensive coordinator this season.
Well, maybe with the exception of one player.
Deommodore Lenoir explained why he was a little anxious upon hearing about Saleh’s return after the coach spent the previous four seasons with the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers.
“Me, initially, I was kind of nervous because I had just screamed at him when we played the Jets,” Lenoir, the recipient of the 2025 Dwight Clark Legacy Award, told NBC Sports Bay Area’s Laura Britt at the annual event Wednesday night. “I had made a play and I had screamed at him. I didn’t know if he was going to remember that.”
Did he?
“Yeah, he did,” Lenoir said. “He brought it up in the first meeting. It was funny.”
Saleh was the defensive coordinator in San Francisco from 2017 to 2020 before accepting the head coaching job with the Jets in 2021.
The 49ers opened their 2024 season with a visit from Saleh and his Jets in Week 1 at Levi’s Stadium, a game San Francisco won 32-19.
Lenoir finished that game with four tackles, three solo, one pass defensed, and seemingly a whole lot of trash-talking to his former coach.
Saleh was fired after just five games into the 2024 season. Following his departure, he joined the Packers as a consultant, focusing on the offensive side of the ball under coach Matt LaFleur.
And in January, to the surprise of Lenoir, the 49ers officially announced the rehiring of Saleh as defensive coordinator to fill the key spot on Kyle Shanahan’s coaching staff.
Once Saleh addressed the elephant in the room and had his bone to pick with Lenoir, the two now are focused on getting San Francisco’s defense back to its dominant form.
“He’s a very energetic person,” Lenoir said. “The energy he’s going to bring to the room, that he’s already bringing to the room, he’s putting a lot of confidence in the secondary and us.”
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