Nick Sorensen might have been in over his head as 49ers defensive coordinator, and this one game proved he wasn't up to the task.
The San Francisco 49ers' tumultuous 2024 season and finish can be blamed on plenty of things, but injuries and fourth-quarter meltdowns are certainly going to be two of the bigger talking points among the fanbase when looking back at what was nothing short of a massive disappointment of a year.
Blame can be widespread, and head coach Kyle Shanahan has already responded by dismissing two of his coordinators, Brian Schneider on special teams and Nick Sorensen on defense.
While special teams was an absolute mess, Sorensen's defense underachieved to a great measure, partially due to the injury attrition he had to deal with but also because the first-year coordinator failed to adjust in many a situation.
Turns out, there's one particular game against an NFC West foe that might have sealed the assistant's fate.
Week 11 loss to Seahawks cost Nick Sorensen his job
Shanahan was comfortable letting Sorensen grow into his role over the course of 2024. And while the coordinator had plenty of early growing pains, the hope was that he'd show some development by the time Week 18 rolled around.
Unfortunately, a late-season game in Week 11 against the Seattle Seahawks might have been the turning point that convinced Shanahan otherwise.
Fans should remember that game: quarterback Geno Smith's go-ahead touchdown run with mere seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, capping off yet another fourth-quarter meltdown by the Niners defense.
That was also the game in which defensive end Nick Bosa exited late, suffering hip and oblique injuries that'd ultimately sideline him an additional two weeks. If that injury was a turning point, it also gave Sorensen the opportunity to adjust.
But the coordinator didn't, and the San Francisco Chronicle's Eric Branch pointed that out in analyzing why Sorensen was ultimately dismissed from his role:
"Without Bosa, the 49ers defensive line couldn’t generate pressure on Geno Smith, but Sorensen didn’t send extra defenders at the quarterback. Sorensen called one blitz on Smith’s 17 final dropbacks, and the results were disastrous: Smith completed 14 of 16 passes for 130 yards, and Seattle rallied for a 20-17 victory. ...
As it turns out, Sorensen’s lack of adjustments — in that game and throughout the season — caused head coach Kyle Shanahan to question whether he was the right person to lead his defense beyond this season."
Shanahan didn't mention this particular game in his post-2024 press conference, but the head coach alluded to in-game adjustments being a critical part of a coordinator's success:
"I’m not saying you’ve got to change schemes, but you have to have the ability, the history and the knowledge of how to change some stuff up when you’re in some certain situations. And I think that we do need that more going forward."
The Niners won only one more game during the season following that loss, and the growing number of injuries on the defensive side of the ball didn't aid Sorensen much whatsoever.
Yet the lack of adjustments, based on available personnel, continued through Week 18.
Looking specifically at blitzes, the 49ers were one of the least-blitzing teams in the NFL during the regular season, sending an extra rusher only 17.7 percent of the time, fourth lowest.
In contrast, playoff-bound defenses like the Minnesota Vikings (38.9 percent) and Detroit Lions (34.6 percent) had no issue blitzing over the course of 2024, often using extra pressure to make up for ineffective four-man rushes.
Bosa's injury absence only served to highlight the point that Sorensen wasn't adjusting despite the clear-cut need to do so.
And the "before and after" example from Week 11 put that on full display.