49ers fire D-coordinator Steve Wilks after one season

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — After only one season as San Francisco 49ersDefensive coordinator Steve Wilks is out.

“This morning I relieved Steve Wilks of his duties,” Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said in a conference call Wednesday that was scheduled just 10 minutes before it happened. “[We’re] I’m going to end up making a change here as defensive coordinator. A really difficult decision, because [it] It doesn’t really say anything about Steve as a man or as a football coach. I mean, it’s exactly what we wanted as a man. He is a great soccer coach.

“But where we’re going and where we are with our team from a scheme standpoint and things like that, looking back at the whole year up until these last few days, I felt pretty strongly that this was a decision that was best for the organization.”

On Tuesday, Shanahan mostly dodged questions about whether Wilks would remain as defensive coordinator for a second season. He said he needed more time to analyze his feelings toward his staff, although he said he expected most of his staff to return.

On Wednesday morning, Shanahan said he realized that “going in a different direction” was “something I had to do.”

In Wilks’ only season with the Niners, the defense had its ups and downs. A unit that led the NFL in multiple categories in 2022 under DeMeco Ryans, including fewest points allowed per game (16.3) and expected defensive points added (89.58), took a step back in 2023.

San Francisco still finished third in points allowed (17.5) this season, but the 49ers were ninth in defensive EPA (41.48) and had significant leaks against the run in the playoffs, allowing the Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs to average 5.1 yards per carry and 149.3 yards per game in the postseason.

Shanahan took charge of some of those fights, saying he wanted Wilks to run the same system that had previously existed with Ryans and Robert Saleh before him.

“I knew it was a challenge,” Shanahan said. “It was really difficult to lose DeMeco. It was difficult to lose Saleh the year before. We had committed ourselves not only to the system, but also to the players who had been in the system, from our defensive line or linebackers. They had played in it for a long time. a long time.

“My goal was to not have to change all of them, and to bring in Steve, who was amazing how loyal he was and he was trying to do it, but he ended up not being the right fit. And it hurt me to do this, but that’s exactly why I had to do it”.

After it looked like the defense wouldn’t miss a beat during a 5-0 start, Wilks had his share of obstacles thereafter. Shanahan publicly criticized him for a blitz play before the half that resulted in a Minnesota Vikings touchdown in a Week 7 loss. During the Week 9 bye, Shanahan asked Wilks to move from the booth to the field on game days.

And Shanahan used a defensive timeout with the Chiefs facing a second-and-6 at the San Francisco 37-yard line with 2:48 left in overtime in Sunday’s Super Bowl loss, and then said he didn’t like the look of the play.

After the Chiefs’ victory, defensive end Nick Bosa He said the Niners weren’t prepared for some of the running plays designed for the quarterback. Patrick Mahomes. During locker cleaning Tuesday, Bosa offered an evaluation of Wilks’ performance in 2023.

“I think he does a great job with the back end and obviously we had some issues this year throughout the year,” Bosa said. “But that’s part of playing a full season, and I think at the end we were playing our best game.”

linebacker Fred Warner offered a more positive perspective on how things went, noting that the Niners finished fifth in steals (28) and recorded 22 interceptions, which tied for first in the league.

“I thought everything went well,” Warner said Tuesday. “I think people are obviously going to be critical just because, when you go from having the No. 1 defense one year and then a guy comes along and you’re not the No. 1 defense again, it’s like, ‘Oh, well, what happened?’ ?

“Well, I mean there’s a lot more going on. And it was a tough job for him the whole time because he was coming into a system where it was something he didn’t handle. He had to come in and learn what we did and we were the defense.” number one a year ago, and it’s difficult to maintain that type of play. “But we were still a top defense in this league, and I think we played our best ball when we needed to.”

The 49ers will now begin the search for their third defensive coordinator in as many seasons. Shanahan said he will consider both internal and external options. The benefit of looking internally is that he could find someone who already knows the scheme and would be a more natural fit, like Saleh and Ryans were.

One thing Shanahan would prefer, however, is a coordinator who is better equipped to bridge the defensive front and secondary. Unlike Ryans and Saleh, who had experience coaching linebackers, Wilks had extensive experience working with the secondary.

“You want to bring things together and Steve was always working to do that,” Shanahan said. “There’s no doubt about that. But it was just because of his background and how he ended up with us, it was harder than it needed to be and I felt like it would get better if we went in a different direction.”

Wilks came to the Niners after finishing 2022 as interim coach of the carolina panthers. He had previously trained the Arizona Cardinals in 2018, but was fired after finishing 3-13. That resulted in Wilks joining a lawsuit brought by Brian Flores in 2022 against the NFL for racial discrimination in which Wilks alleges the Cardinals did not give him a “fair” opportunity because he is black and used him as a “bridge” coach.