Steve Wilks was the defensive coordinator for a defense that allowed the third-fewest points in the NFL this season. He was the architect whose adjustments held the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions to seven total fourth quarter points as the San Francisco 49ers built back-to-back comeback wins to reach Super Bowl 58. He was the replacement for DeMeco Ryans, a high profile hire who’d led a hapless Carolina Panthers team to 6-6 as interim head coach and had kept the Niners rolling despite a depleted secondary.
Now he’s out of a job, because someone’s gotta take the fall as San Francisco’s championship drought enters its 30th year.
#49ers coach Kyle Shanahan announces on a conference call that he has fired DC Steve Wilks.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 14, 2024
Wilks was, indeed, a step back from Ryans. Ryans’ wildly successful head coaching debut with the Houston Texans suggests pretty much anyone would have been. The Niners gave up 16.3 points per game in 2022 but 17.5 in 2023. They slid from first in expected points added (EPA) allowed per play in Ryans’ final season to 10th this fall.
But Wilks found ways to create the leverage needed to patch up his team’s weak spots. Tanaloa Hufanga’s season-ending injury in Week 10 robbed his secondary of an All-Pro safety down the stretch. Ambry Thomas and Isaiah Oliver proved lacking when given larger roles. So Wilks helped give Charvarius Ward the latitude to prove he’s one of the NFL’s top cornerbacks and turned 2021 fifth-round pick Deommodore Lenoir into an upper crust starter who allowed just a 75.2 passer rating in coverage.
When Chase Young failed to have the desired impact after arriving in a mid-season trade, he dialed back the former rookie of the year’s snap count and leaned into his defensive depth. Rather than over-correct, he stayed the course for a team that ranked 30th in blitz rate (18 percent) but tied for seventh in total sacks (48).
More importantly, Wilks’ defense held a surging Chiefs team to a pair of fourth quarter field goals in Super Bowl 58. He did so without vital off-ball linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who tore his Achilles running onto the field in the second quarter because the football gods really, really hate San Francisco right now.
That led to an increased role for backup Oren Burks and a glowing sigil of a target in the short-range over the middle of the field — i.e. the exact place where Patrick Mahomes has thrived thanks to a lack of deep threats. Because the Chiefs are a professional football team, they took full advantage. Every single one of their points came after Greenlaw’s departure thanks to a passing map that looks like this:
Wilks did what he could but ultimately couldn’t overcome that late-breaking curveball. He wasn’t the one who couldn’t figure out how to stop Kansas City’s predictable pressure with a championship hanging in the balance. He wasn’t the one who opted to take the ball after winning an overtime coin toss, effectively putting the Niners’ cards on the table and letting Patrick Mahomes draw until he beat them.
He isn’t the coach with the history of brutal come-from-ahead losses in the Super Bowl. That’s Kyle Shanahan — the guy who fired him.
Wilks may not have been the solution for which Shanahan asked, but he wasn’t the problem either. He continued his streak of player development, leaning into San Francisco’s strengths to bring the absolute best out of guys like Ward, Lenoir and free agent arrival Javon Hargrave. He authored a bend-don’t-break defense that covered its biggest weakness (consistent stops against the run) only for new ones to bubble to the surface at the worst possible time.
The 49ers couldn’t fire the head coach who is 35-16 over the last three regular seasons and has made it to the NFC title game or further four of the last five years. But they could push Wilks onto Shanahan’s sword after just a year of service. That’s the price of success; a symptom of complacency that sweeps away “good” in a possibly futile effort to be “great.”
Wilks will get a job somewhere else. He’ll make solid players Pro Bowlers and turn Pro Bowlers into All-Pros. It just won’t be with the Niners.
That leaves San Francisco searching for answers and its third defensive coordinator in three years. There’s no guarantee things will get better. But after four trips to the conference championship and zero rings in five years, that’s the kind of gamble the 49ers decided they needed to make.
