At various factors all through the season, Steve Wilks’ match as defensive coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers appeared like a square-peg-in-a-round-hole state of affairs.
And after the 49ers protection crumbled within the largest second on the most important stage potential in Sunday’s 25-22 extra time loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII, the writing was on the wall for Wilks, who was fired on Wednesday.
“(It’s a) really tough decision because really it says nothing about Steve as a man or as a football coach,” head coach Kyle Shanahan stated Wednesday, by way of NBC Sports Bay Area. “He’s exactly what we wanted as a man, and he’s a great football coach. But just where we’re going, where we’re at with our team from a scheme standpoint and things like that. Looking through it all throughout the year and these last few days, (I) felt pretty strongly this was the decision that was best for our organization.”
Wilks made some questionable defensive play calls all through the common season that appeared to irk Shanahan, who relocated him from the sales space to the sideline to name performs halfway by means of the season.
Then in extra time of the Super Bowl in opposition to arguably the highest quarterback within the NFL, Shanahan had to name a timeout as a result of Wilks needed to a run an ill-fated cowl zero blitz on third-and-short.
As the primary outdoors rent of Shanahan’s tenure with the 49ers, Wilks’ hiring at first look appeared to be an optimistically daring determination.
After all, the 49ers ranked first within the NFL in complete protection and scoring protection the season earlier than, and so they had solely gotten higher, including star defensive deal with Javon Hargrave throughout the offseason and former No. 2 general decide Chase Young on the Oct. 31 commerce deadline.
But Wilks joined the group with a defensive philosophy and background that differed from what San Francisco had run the previous few years. Wilks additionally didn’t herald his personal assistant coaches and he was made to work inside the confines of what SF already had.
“We committed to not only the system but the players within the system, the D-line, the linebackers,” Shanahan added. “They’d played in it for such a long time. It was my goal to not have to change all of them.”
The concept was that Wilks would decide up proper the place DeMeco Ryans left off earlier than taking the Houston Texans head-coaching job, simply as Ryans had picked up the place Robert Saleh left off two seasons earlier than after Saleh left to take the New York Jets head-coaching job.
And to a level, he did. It simply didn’t present when it mattered most.
San Francisco completed with the third-best run protection (89.7 yards per recreation) and third-best scoring protection (17.5 factors per recreation) throughout the common season. But after reaching the postseason, the 49ers allowed 149.3 yards per recreation and 25.6 factors per recreation whereas taking part in from behind in opposition to each the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions.
Wilks is not any query a superb defensive coordinator, he’s simply not the fitting coordinator for Shanahan’s system. His disastrous play-calling within the fourth quarter and extra time of the Super Bowl all however solidified that he simply didn’t mesh properly with Shanahan’s imaginative and prescient for the way he needs the 49ers to play.
From the tone of his remarks on Wednesday, it looks like Shanahan plans to promote Wilks’ successor from inside. Some names to keep watch over embrace defensive passing recreation specialist Nick Sorensen, defensive position coach Kris Kocurek, linebackers coach Johnny Holland and defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks.
Discussion about this post