Staff search heating up

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New 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh is meeting with the current coaching staff this week and making calls to outside candidates to decide who's staying, who's going and who's coming.

Some already have a good idea -- namely, defensive coordinator Greg Manusky, who is interviewing today in Arizona, and then is off to Dallas, accoridng to initial ESPN reports.

Others have been told they will know more by the weekend. One potential speed bump for Harbaugh is he wants to see who Stanford hires as his replacement before bringing staffers over.

One candidate getting a strong look is Stanford offensive line coach Greg Roman, and he may be doing more than working the front five -- he is under consideration for the offensive coordinator job, according to a league source.

Roman was actually listed as Harbaugh's associate head coach/assistant head coach offense/tight ends/offensive tackles last season. The year before, he was the running game coordinator (Toby Gerhart, anyone?) on top of handling the TEs and OTs.

Before coming to Stanford, he spent the first 13 years of his coaching career in the NFL -- the last two as John Harbaugh's assistant offensive line coach in Baltimore, and two years before that as David Carr's quarterbacks coach in Houston -- and yes, Carr is the only quarterback under contract with the Niners. He also coached under Dom Capers in Carolina and Houston.

Roman hasn't been the primary play caller before, but Harbaugh wants to take a lead in that role anyways.

If Harbaugh wants to go with an experienced play caller, one name to look for is Colts receivers coach Ron Turner. Harbaugh hired him as offensive coordinator last year, but Turner backed out days later to stay in the NFL.

Turner ran the Bears offense from 1993-96 -- Harbaugh played for him one year -- and again from 2005-09 with one Super Bowl appearance.

Stanford offensive coordinator David Shaw is a natural candidate if he doesn't get the head coaching job at Stanford, which more and more looks like it wants to parlay Andrew Luck and a top-5 ranking into a big-name hire.

And how about defensive coordinator?

Presumed Stanford import Vic Fangio interviewed with Dallas, according to ESPN.com, and has already met with Harbaugh, according to Matt Maiocco at CSNBA.

Posted By: David White (Email, Twitter) | January 11 2011 at 10:30 AM