Bears allow assistant special teams coordinator Derius Swinton to go to the 49ers

The Sacramento Bee is reporting that the San Francisco 49ers are expected to hire Derius Swinton as their special teams coordinator. Swinton was the assistant special teams coordinator for the Chicago Bears during the 2015 season.

He also spent the 2013 and 2014 seasons in the same role on John Fox's coaching staff in Denver. In all Swinton has seven years experience coaching special teams in the NFL.

Chicago's special teams unit wasn't as bad as it seemed, especially when you consider all the bottom of the depth chart shuffling that was going on during the 2015 season. Long time NFL writer, Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News, has been ranking special teams' for years now and he uses a 22 category system to determine which unit is the best. The Bears finished the 2015 season ranked a respectable 12th.

This is the third assistant coach to leave the Bears this offseason, following offensive coordinator Adam Gase being hired by the Miami Dolphins as their head coach and offensive assistant Bo Hardegree leaving to become Gase's quarterbacks coach in Miami.

The Bears now have three vacant coaching positions to fill. Offenssive assistant, assistant special teams coach, and with the promotion of Dowell Loggains to offensive coordinator, quarterback coach.