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Why the 49ers Should Replace Steve Wilks Internally

The 49ers rich veteran defensive players such as Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Arik Armstead don 't want some stranger to walk into their defensive meeting room and tell them to do things differently.

Grant Cohn

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Face it. The players fired Steve Wilks.

Kyle Shanahan can say he slept on it and had a change of heart and simply decided Wilks was a bad fit after one season or whatever. But Shanahan hired Wilks, and Shanahan defended him all season, then Shanahan blew the Super Bowl because he didn't know the playoff overtime rules, and to placate his disgruntled players he fired a defensive coordinator they never wanted in the first place. That's what happened.

And why didn't the players want Wilks?

Because he's an outsider. Because he doesn't know the scheme they learned and perfected for years under Robert Saleh and DeMeco Ryans. Because they didn't want to learn a new scheme. Because they think they know better than Wilks. Because they think they can coach themselves.

The 49ers rich veteran defensive players such as Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Arik Armstead don 't want some stranger to walk into their defensive meeting room and tell them to do things differently. The 49ers rich veteran defensive players simply want a friend as a defensive coordinator.

That's why the 49ers can't hire someone from outside the organization to replace Wilks. If they do, they run the same risk they ran with Wilks, because at any moment the 49ers rich veteran defensive players could turn on the next defensive coordinator, too.

The 49ers almost have to promote defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks to defensive coordinator. He's been with the 49ers since 2017, he coached under Robert Saleh before that and the players seem to like him.

Perfect fit.

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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