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49ers DC Steve Wilks Should be the Coordinator of the Year

Analyzing why San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks should be the Coordinator of the Year.
Grant Cohn|
49ers DC Steve Wilks Should be the Coordinator of the Year
49ers DC Steve Wilks Should be the Coordinator of the Year

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San Francisco 49ers

Steve Wilks gets no respect.

He has the best defense in the NFL and gets no credit for it. All people know about him is that the 49ers threw him under the bus for their three-game losing streak and made him move from the coach's booth to the sideline to call plays.

People don't seem to realize that he inherited the No. 1 defense in the NFL and made it better. Last season under previous defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, the 49ers defense allowed 17.2 points per game, Ryans won the NFL's Coordinator of the Year Award and became head coach of the Texans.

Now, the 49ers defense is allowing a mere 15.8 points per game, and yet Steve Wilks isn't one of the favorites to win Coordinator of the Year Award.

Here are the favorites according to BetMichigan.com.

1. Lions OC Ben Johnson: +300

2. Cowboys DC Dan Quinn: +700

3. Texans OC Bobby Slowik: +700

4. Cowboys OC Brian Schottenheimer: +1200

5. Ravens OC Todd Monken: +1200

6. Ravens DC Mike Macdonald: +1200

7. Dolphins OC Frank Smith: +1500

8. 49ers DC Steve Wilks: +1500

I don't understand this leaderboard. Johnson's offense ranks 7th in points per game, which is good but not great. Quinn's defense got destroyed by the 49ers offense. Schottenheimer's offense got destroyed by the 49ers defense. Monken and Macdonald are worthy of the award, but Smith doesn't even call the Dolphins plays -- Mike McDaniel does.

Wilks should be the clear frontrunner to win this award. He took a great defense and made it even better by fixing its weaknesses. The 49ers Achilles heel always used to be mobile quarterbacks. Now, Wilks has figured out how to shut them down. Ask Jalen Hurts.

It's time Wilks starts getting some respect.

Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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