The 49ers Need to Fire Their Special Teams Coordinator

If anything cost the 49ers the Super Bowl, it was special teams, not defense.
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The 49ers fired the wrong coordinator after losing Super Bowl LVIII.

They fired Steve Wilks, whose defense actually performed quite well in that game until the final drive of overtime when it was understandably gassed. Nothing Wilks could do about that. And yet the 49ers fired him and not special teams coordinator Brian Schneider.

If anything cost the 49ers the Super Bowl, it was special teams, not defense. Because the defense never gave up an actual touchdown drive during regulation. Before overtime, the only touchdown the 49ers defense gave up came one play after the 49ers muffed a punt deep inside their own territory. Which means that touchdown was the special teams' fault.

First the ball bounced off Darrell Luter Jr.'s foot -- an unfortunate bounce. These things happen. But then Ray Ray McCloud made a critical sin. Instead of falling on the ball, as Schneider should have coached him to do, McCloud tried to scoop it up and run with it, as Schneider should have coached him not to do.

Players never should try to scoop a muffed punt and run with it when there are bodies around -- it's too dangerous. Just fall on the ball and give it to the offense. Don't try to be a hero. But that's exactly what McCloud tried to be, a hero. And that's on him and Schneider.

In addition, the kicker Schneider told the 49ers to draft, Jake Moody, missed an extra point, which allowed the Chiefs to tie the game with a field goal at the end of regulation.

The 49ers' special teams were abysmal in the Super Bowl. Someone needs to take the fall for that, and that someone should be Schneider.


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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.