Robert Saleh is back in charge of the San Francisco 49ers defense this season after a few years with the Jets. After he was was fired by the Jets last season, he spent the rest of the 2024 season as a consultant with the Packers under head coach Matt LaFleur.
Before LaFleur was the head coach in Green Bay, he spent a year as Sean McVay's offensive coordinator in Los Angeles. Before that he and McVay coached together in Washington.
When LaFleur left the Rams, current Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell replaced him as offensive coordinator. When O'Connell left, current Jaguars coach Liam Coen took the job for a year before leaving. This last preseason Coen took the Jaguars job and recruited Grant Udinski to leave Minnesota, where he worked the last three seasons under O'Connell, to be his offensive coordinator.
Why are we rehashing all that? Well, the 49ers and Jaguars play this week, and at his press conference on Thursday, Saleh told the press about how the 49ers have to be careful on Sunday because of how good Coen and the Jaguars are at legal sign-stealing. And in the process he revealed that the entire Sean McVay coaching tree does it too.
Robert Saleh says the Jaguars offense has a signal stealing system that’s legal:
— Coach Yac 🗣 (@Coach_Yac) September 25, 2025
“Liam Coen and his staff coming from Minnesota they got legally a really advanced signal stealing system where they always find a way to put themselves in an advantageous situation. They do a great… pic.twitter.com/XVJfPKhL2y
“Liam [Coen] and his staff, a couple guys coming from Minnesota they got, legally, a really advanced signal stealing system where they always find a way to put themselves in an advantageous situation," said Saleh. "They do a great job of it. They formation you. They just try to find any nugget they can. So we've got to be great with our signals. We've gotta be great with our communication to combat some of those tells we might give on the field. They're almost elite in that regard. That whole entire tree from Sean to Kevin O'Connell to all those guys. They all do it."
Coen's offensive coordinator with the Jaguars, Grant Udinski, spent the previous three seasons under O'Connell in Minnesota.
It seems likely that Saleh would have picked up this information from his time with the Packers last season, but since he's not part of the group that coached in Los Angeles or Washington before that, he's happy to talk out of school.
Good thing it's all legal.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Robert Saleh Casually Accuses Entire Sean McVay Coaching Tree of Elite Sign-Stealing.
