Getty 49ers All-Pro George Kittle has a new tight ends coach.
The San Francisco 49ers have found their guy to lead George Kittle and the rest of the team’s tight end group moving forward.
And for the ‘Niners, it’s someone who is already familiar with the franchise — including the All-Pro tight end.
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First reported by Matt Barrows of The Athletic on Wednesday, February 16, the 49ers will promote quality control coach Brian Fleury to the vacant tight end coach spot.
Some #49ers coaching staff news…
The 49ers are promoting offensive quality control coach Brian Fleury to tight ends coach, sources told The Athletic on Wednesday. Fleury replaces Jon Embree,…
Fleury replaces Jon Embree, who parted ways with the team after reports of refusing to take a pay cut with the 49ers. Embree has since joined former 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel with his coaching staff for the Miami Dolphins.
Early Years of Fleury
Fleury wrapped up his third campaign with the 49ers this past season.
During the last two seasons, Fleury served as the team’s offensive quality control coach. Although in 2019, he worked on the defensive side of the football as defensive quality control.
While Fleury has worked with both sides of the ball, he has an extensive background on offense that dates back to his collegiate years. Fleury is a former quarterback at Towson University, where he played from 1999-2002. Before Towson, he attended the University of Maryland during a time the Terrapins were in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Fleury then dove into coaching in 2003 as a graduate assistant for Maryland. He then linked with Sacred Heart University where he began working with the safeties in 2005. Then, for the next three seasons, he served as SHU’s defensive coordinator.
Fleury has also coached on the special teams side: Serving as special teams coordinator from 2009-2012 at Towson. Along with leading the punt and kickoff units, Fleury worked with the Tigers’ defensive backs. In his final two seasons at the school with an average enrollment of 20,000 students, the Tigers would go on and claim the outright Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) title in 2011 then claim a shared title in 2012.
Fleury’s NFL Years
Fleury made the jump to the NFL in 2013.
He began his NFL run with the Buffalo Bills — where he served in a quality control role and coached up linebackers. One of the players he helped coach up? Kiko Alonso, who would go on and deliver a career-best 159 total tackles with 87 solo stops and two sacks according to Pro Football Reference.
After Buffalo, Fleury coached with the Cleveland Browns in 2014 and 2015 as the outside linebackers coach. Paul Kruger was among the names he coached, who produced 11 sacks in 2014 to lead the Browns.
From Cleveland he went on to the Dolphins — where his roles included linebackers (2016), defensive line (2017) and defensive backs assistant (2018). But Fleury wore other coaching hats down in South Beach: He helped spearhead the Dolphins’ research analytics department in ’17 and ’18, his last two seasons with the ‘Fins.
‘Positional Interchangeability’
Fleury’s promotion brings about this scenario for the 49ers as noted by The Athletic’s David Lombardi: Positional interchangeability.
“Is positional interchangeability extending to the 49ers coaching staff? Newly promoted TE coach Brian Fleury has worked specifically with linebackers, D-linemen and DBs over his 8 years in the NFL. He’s recently been an offensive quality control coach for SF,” Lombardi tweeted on Wednesday.
And for Fleury, he joins DeMeco Ryans as staff members from Kyle Shanahan who received a job elevation from within the coaching staff.
This is another 49ers’ promotion from within. The most notable of those is DeMeco Ryans, who rose the ranks to defensive coordinator. Shanahan obviously sees Brian Fleury as more than capable of handling the TE coach role — he trusts the system they’ve implemented in the building