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Is Kyle Shanahan Scapegoating Steve Wilks?

Shanahan wants everyone to know that Wilks is responsible for the decision that cost the 49ers a victory against the Vikings.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers have lost two games in a row and it's not Kyle Shanahan's fault according to Kyle Shanahan.

It's the defense's fault. Or more specifically, defensive coordinator Steve Wilks' fault. Shanahan keeps second guessing his decisions. 

First, Wilks defense gave up 160 rushing yards in a loss to the Browns because it didn't play enough defenders in the box, according to Shanahan. And this past Sunday, the 49ers defense blitzed with 16 seconds left in the first half and gave up a 60-yard touchdown catch in a game they lost by five. That was the difference in the game.

"He knows he messed up on that call," Shanahan said of Wilks. "I have no problem with zero blitzes, especially when people need a lot of yards. If you need to get 20 yards to kick a field goal, I have no problem with a zero blitz. But I do when there's 16 seconds left. That's where he lost track. There was no necessary need for that just because of the time. I have no problem with that play call, but when it's that time you can't do that. That's not an option."

Shanahan wants everyone to know that Wilks is responsible for the decision that cost the 49ers a victory against the Vikings. Which means Shanahan is scapegoating Wilks. Throwing him under the bus. These are things Shanahan could and probably has said to Wilks privately. Publicly, they're supposed to be a united front. A team.

And Shanahan isn't being totally fair. He's the head coach. He's on the head set during the game. If he didn't like Wilks' play call with 16 seconds left, Shanahan could have vetoed it and called something else, but he didn't. He criticized it after the fact.

I wonder how Wilks feels about Shanahan right now.

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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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