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.
Reason No. 1: DeMeco Ryans turned around 49ers run defense
Even when San Francisco got off to a 2-0 start to the regular season, it wasn’t hard to see a glaring weakness: defending against the run, especially in the middle of the front seven.
Over the 49ers’ first eight games of the regular season, opponents rushed for at least 100 yards in seven of those contests, the lone exception being the Arizona Cardinals in Week 5, and they nevertheless came close with 94 total rush yards.
During that stretch, DeMeco Ryans’ defense was surrendering an average of 131.6 rush yards per game.
Not good.
However, some defensive tweaks and adjustments (we’ll get to some of those in a moment) played a key role in the Niners turning this glaring weakness around and into a bona fide strength.
Over San Francisco’s final nine games, following an abysmal 163 rush yards allowed to the Cardinals in Week 9, the 49ers gave up just one 100-yard rush game (Week 13 at the Seattle Seahawks) and allowed an average of only 78.6 yards on the ground per game over that final stretch.
Putting a stamp on all of it, the Niners also contained the Cowboys’ vaunted rushing attack, led by running backs Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard, to a mere 77 yards and an average of 3.7 yards per carry.
Forcing opponents to get one-dimensional on offense has been a big reason behind San Francisco’s turnaround.
Reason No. 2: DeMeco Ryans made tweaks to 49ers defensive line
A year ago, and for much of 2019, defensive tackle Arik Armstead primarily played the bulk of his snaps on the outside of the formation.
It worked well enough, particularly in Armstead’s 10-sack 2019 campaign, and Armstead has always been valuable defending against the run. But with the 49ers having stockpiled a number of reserve edge rushers to pair with Pro Bowl EDGE Nick Bosa leading into 2021, moving Armstead inside the formation has provided a massive boost.
Armstead might not get the sheer sack totals rushing from the inside, although he did reach six on the season, second best in his career after those 2019 numbers, and the “dirty work” he does to free up players like Bosa can’t be understated.
Read More: How DeMeco Ryans redeemed himself as 49ers defensive coordinator
Perhaps defensive line coach Kris Kocurek gets some credit here, too, but Ryans was instrumental in letting this play out.
Over the second half of the regular season and so far in the playoffs, it’s worked.
Bosa, too, was allowed to move around the formation instead of primarily lining up on the strong side where he’d frequently be chip-blocked by tight ends and slot wide receivers. That gave Ryans even more flexibility, while putting reserve defensive end Arden Key into more of a 3-technique pass-rusher resulted in the former Las Vegas Raiders draft bust turning in a career-best campaign with 6.5 sacks, second only on the Niners behind Bosa.
San Francisco’s defensive line has now turned into one of the team’s biggest strengths.
Reason No. 3: DeMeco Ryans has helped negate 49ers weaknesses at cornerback
All year long, one of the 49ers’ primary defensive concerns has been at cornerback. It’s been a relative rotating door, too, with veteran corners like Dre Kirkpatrick and Josh Norman coming, going and seeing their respective roles change on a frequent basis.
The issues weren’t helped much either, especially with the slow maturation of rookie third-round NFL Draft pick Ambry Thomas, who was inactive for much of the first half of the year, and then injuries to veteran cornerbacks Jason Verrett and Emmanuel Moseley, the latter at least returning from an ankle sprain.
True, opponents have regularly targeted players like Thomas and Norman when possible, yet DeMeco Ryans has shown the ability to adjust here, too, as described by Niners Nation’s Kyle Posey after the Niners’ overtime win against the Cincinnati Bengals earlier this season:
"I thought it was one of DeMeco Ryans’ best-coached games yet. They attempted to cover the Bengals wideouts in man coverage, and that didn’t work. But, once the 49ers get to third down, Ryans has been aggressive when it comes to blitzing and playing man coverage behind it. Ryans adjusted instead of being hard-headed and running something that you know wouldn’t work. San Francisco ran 19 Cover-2 snaps against Cincinnati. That’s more than they ran in their previous 12 games combined. The goal was to keep everything in front of you and make Burrow beat you underneath."
Ryans still doesn’t blitz much, San Francisco blitzed just 19.8 percent of the time, which was fourth lowest in the league.
But the bigger kicker is the fact, that while the 49ers are still viewed as vulnerable in the secondary, Ryans’ defense still surrendered just 3,510 passing yards during the regular season.
That was sixth best in the league, providing a proverbial “thumb to the nose” to anyone suggesting the Niners’ pass defense isn’t good.
Reason No. 4: DeMeco Ryans stayed the course during 49ers struggles
Let’s rewind to that San Francisco four-game losing streak, a period when the 49ers seemingly figured out ways to lose each game in one form or another.
Perhaps the worst clunker was after that streak, a Week 9 loss to a shorthanded Cardinals squad led by quarterback Colt McCoy at Levi’s Stadium.
Inexcusable as that loss was, and it would have been easy to pin the loss almost entirely upon Ryans’ shoulders, the Niners’ defensive coordinator didn’t shirk away or drastically alter his game plan. While hard to quantify by any measure, it’s nevertheless important.
If anything, Ryans remained a constant.
Ryans earned some serious praise from one of San Francisco’s captains, linebacker Fred Warner, who told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Eric Branch the following:
"I think the best thing he did was remain the exact same person every day, through the highs and lows. …Even though we had some rough patches, we had the right foundation, so over time, with more repetition, you’re going to get better."
Sure, Ryans never would have admitted being overwhelmed by the pressure. But on paper at least, it wouldn’t have been shocking if Ryans crumbled in the wake of the 49ers defense seemingly falling apart.
Perhaps having played 10 years in the NFL taught Ryans a crucial lesson, specifically just how rapidly things can change and turn around.
Ryans turned around his first year as a coordinator, and the Niners defense has turned into a bona fide force worthy of a playoff push.