The 49ers Hire Steve Wilks as Defensive Coordinator

Great hire.
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Finally, the 49ers have a new defensive coordinator.

They just hired former head coach Steve Wilks, according to the NFL Network. Wilks will replace DeMeco Ryans, who recently became the head coach of the Houston Texans.

Unlike Ryans and his predecessor, Robert Saleh, who were novices when they became defensive coordinator for the 49ers, Wilks is a veteran. He was a long-time defensive backs coach for teams such as the Chicago Bear, the San Diego Chargers and the Carolina Panthers. He also has been a defensive coordinator, an interim head coach and a head coach. He even beat Kyle Shanahan head to head in 2018 when Wilks was the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and his quarterback was Josh Rosen.

Wilks is a tremendous leader who has a positive, upbeat attitude, similar to Ryans and Saleh. It seems as though Kyle Shanahan, who can be dour and negative, understands that he needs a certain type of coordinator to balance him out. If that's the case, good for Shanahan.

But Wilks is more than a rah-rah leader. He's a brilliant tactician and a good head coach -- the Panthers improved this season when they fired Matt Rhule and promoted Wilks. After a few seasons coaching the 49ers defense, Wilks most likely will land another head-coaching job, just as Ryans and Saleh did after a few years coaching the 49ers' loaded defense.

Wilks will now get to work with Nick Bosa, who most likely will win the Defensive Player of the Year Award, and Kris Kocurek, the best defensive line coach in the league. The 49ers defense shouldn't miss a beat.


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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.