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Sources: 49ers fire special teams coach Schneider

  • Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff WriterJan 7, 2025, 01:05 AM ET

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      Nick Wagoner is an NFL reporter at ESPN. Nick has covered the San Francisco 49ers and the NFL at ESPN since 2016, having previously covered the St. Louis Rams for 12 years, including three years (2013 to 2015) at ESPN. In his 10 years with the company, Nick has led ESPN’s coverage of the Niners’ 2019 Super Bowl run, Colin Kaepernick’s protest, the Rams making Michael Sam the first openly gay player drafted to the NFL, Sam’s subsequent pursuit of a roster spot and the team’s relocation and stadium saga. You can follow Nick via Twitter @nwagoner

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In an offseason that figures to bring plenty of change after a 6-11 finish, the San Francisco 49ers made their first major move Monday, relieving Brian Schneider of his duties as special teams coordinator, sources told ESPN.

Schneider’s firing comes as little surprise after he oversaw a special teams unit that was among the worst in the NFL in 2024. The Niners finished 32nd in the league in expected points added on special teams at negative-47.67, which was nearly 24 more points lost than the next-closest team (the Atlanta Falcons at negative-23.9).

In San Francisco’s lost season, special teams’ errors seemed to happen nearly every week, including missed field goals, successful fake punts allowed, costly penalties, muffed return attempts and a middling punting unit.

At the team’s bye in late October, coach Kyle Shanahan said he had “no concerns” with Schneider and that moving on from him “hasn’t entered my head at all.” But Shanahan also was holding out hope that things would turn for the better on special teams.

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In November, Shanahan said the Niners were spending “a lot” of meeting time and practice time trying to improve on special teams but also acknowledged the trickle-down effect of the team’s injuries also wasn’t helping those efforts.

“We have mixed a lot of guys in there,” Shanahan said then. “I do think guys are getting better, but we’ve got to make sure that we don’t make those dumb plays where we can cause a penalty, where we can cause a turnover and those are the things that we’ve really got to clean up.”

That turnaround never really happened, though, as kicker