4 reasons why 49ers coordinator DeMeco Ryans impressed us in 2021

There were going to be growing pains for 49ers first-year defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans in 2021, but his maturation has been fun to watch.

He might not have received the same kind of criticism as now-New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh experienced over his first two years as the San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator.

But now-Niners defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans certainly had plenty of questions floating about him early in 2021, and there was no shortage of criticism way back when San Francisco was mired in a four-game losing streak and off to an abysmal 3-5 start to the regular season.

Ryans, the team’s linebackers coach from 2018 through 2020, was Saleh’s hand-picked successor, and it led to a series of question marks both he and the rest of the 49ers defense would have to answer over the course of his first season in a new role.

It’s safe to say Ryans answered a lot of them.

The Niners finished the regular season with the league’s No. 9-ranked scoring defense, allowing an average of just 21.5 points per game, and only two teams (the Buffalo Bills and Carolina Panthers) gave up fewer yards over the course of the year than San Francisco’s 5,270.

That alone is one reason to be impressed with the job Ryans has done, helping get the 49ers into the playoffs and subsequently holding the No. 1 scoring offense in the NFL during the regular season, the Dallas Cowboys, to just 17 points in the Niners’ Wild Card win.

Let’s look at some other reasons why Ryans has impressed all of us so much in his inaugural year as defensive coordinator.