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Were the 49ers Correct to Fire Steve Wilks?

The 49ers hired Wilks, forced him to run the Wide 9 defense and then gave him a bunch of defensive ends that had no interest in setting the edge or defending the run, and that includes Nick Bosa.
Grant Cohn|
Were the 49ers Correct to Fire Steve Wilks?
Were the 49ers Correct to Fire Steve Wilks?

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers as though they had no choice but to fire Steve Wilks because he underperformed with elite talent on defense.

Is this true? Were the 49ers correct to fire Wilks?

It certainly is true that the defense regressed a bit under Wilks in 2023. When DeMeco Ryans was the defensive coordinator in 2022, the 49ers defense ranked No. 1 in the NFL and gave up just 16.3 points per game. Outstanding.

Under Wilks, the 49ers defense ranked No. 3 in the NFL and gave up 17.5 points per game. Which means Wilks got fired for giving up just one point per game more than Ryans. Ridiculous.

The 49ers' issue on defense wasn't Wilks or his scheme or his play calling. When the 49ers defense played poorly, which wasn't often, its issue was effort. The players didn't play their hardest, even in the NFC freaking Championship game. That's on the players. At a certain point, veterans such as Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, Javon Hargrave and Fred Warner shouldn't need a coach to motivate them to play hard. They're paid to play hard. That's expected of them.

And when those players did play hard, like in the Super Bowl, Wilks was outstanding, considering he held the Chiefs to 19 points through four quarters. When Ryans faced the Chiefs in 2022, he gave up 44 points in four quarters. Wilks was better against Kansas City.

The 49ers hired Wilks, forced him to run the Wide 9 defense and then gave him a bunch of defensive ends that had no interest in setting the edge or defending the run, and that includes Nick Bosa.

Wilks did not deserve to get fired. He deserved so much better.

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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