When All Else Fails, Just Blame Steve Wilks

The San Francisco 49ers lost the Super Bowl on Sunday. And on Wednesday, they fired their defensive coordinator, Steve Wilks, despite having a Top 5 defense all year.

#49ers coach Kyle Shanahan announces on a conference call that he has fired DC Steve Wilks.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 14, 2024

In the 49ers defense, San Fran allowed 159 rush yards in the playoffs which is the most for a team that made the Super Bowl since the 60’s. The Chiefs put 130 rushing yards on the 49ers heads in Super Bowl LVIII but I’m still not sure it makes any sense to fire the coach who led the no. 3 rushing defense all season.

But this isn’t the first time Steve Wilks has been randomly thrown under the bus after only one season in the team’s building.

What happened to Steve Wilks in Arizona?

In 2018, the Arizona Cardinals hired Steve Wilks to replace Bruce Arians following his 2017 retirement. It was Wilks’s first NFL head coaching job. A dream come true.

The Cardinals finished the season with 3 wins and Wilks was fired after only one year as the head coach.

Rarely do you see an NFL team move on from a head coach after only one season—especially a team with no real winning expectations.

They entered the season with rookie QB, Josh Rosen, and it didn’t take long to realize Josh Rosen didn’t deserve to be an NFL starter or honestly, Rosen wasn’t good enough to be in the NFL at all.

Jaquiski Tartt with the interception on Josh Rosen#GoNiners pic.twitter.com/KGtzE0sliv

— Def Pen Sports (@DefPenSports) October 28, 2018

Excellent throw into triple coverage. I blame Steve Wilks.

Wilks was treated like he singlehandedly handicapped this team but Arizona would immediately use their no. 1 pick to draft Kyler Murray so the organization knew Wilks was working with a talentless QB room and instead of giving him an opportunity to coach a Heisman winner, they fired Wilks for Kliff Kingsbury who had never coached in the NFL before.

What happened to Steve Wilks in Carolina?

Prior to the 2022 NFL season, the Carolina Panthers hired Steve Wilks as the defensive pass game coordinator and was quickly thrust into an interim head coaching job when the franchise fired Matt Rhule, a man who scammed the NFL into believing he was the next hot shot coach when he was full of shit from day one.

Wilks went 6-6 with Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. Another situation where he was tasked with coaching guys who aren’t good enough to be NFL starters but it didn’t matter. The Panthers elected to hire Frank Reich because, like the Kliff Kingsbury situation, the organization wanted an ‘offensive-minded’ coach.

What happened to Steve Wilks in San Francisco?

It felt like Steve Wilks finally found his home. Ya know, some guys just don’t have what it takes to be a head coach. Some guys are simply best suited to be coordinators. For whatever reason, their voice doesn’t resonate with an entire time. That’s cool.

So Steve Wilks did his job. The 49ers defense was 2nd in yards allowed and 3rd in points allowed. I didn’t walk away from the Super Bowl believing the defense was the main reason they lost. Christian McCaffrey fumbled the ball in the first possession giving away momentum to Kansas City early.

It was reported Kyle Shanahan didn’t understand the postseason overtime rules so he elected to receive the ball first not realizing that no matter if San Fran scored or not, Kansas City was going to get the ball back and it sounded like no one on the 49ers sideline knew the rules either which I imagine effected Steve Wilks’s playcalling.

Brock Purdy was getting balls tipped at the line and spiking balls at his receiver’s feet. Patrick Mahomes did Patrick Mahomes things to lead their final game-winning drive but I just don’t believe coaches should get fired for losing to the greatest quarterback ever.

There are two ways to take the last few years of Wilks’s career.

Steve Wilks is a strange guy who rubs people the wrong way. Like, it’s really easy to fire a guy you straight up don’t like being around. I’ve had a bajillion jobs over the years and I’ve avoided being fired despite showing up when I wanted and leaving when I wanted simply because the supervisors fucked with me. It’s highly possible Steve Wilks is a weirdo.

The Cardinals only hired him to get brownie points for making a diversity hire and when the season went to shit and they saw a chance to draft a QB, they instantly pivoted to a ‘QB whisperer’ instead of seeing out what Wilks could do with literally ANY quarterback better than Josh Rosen.

The Panthers only made Wilks the interim head coach because, well, he happened to be in the building and someone had to coach the team. But once again, when the organization saw they were getting a QB in the draft, they found an offensive coach and threw Wilks in the trash.

Kyle Shanahan is incapable of taking responsibility for his teams losing because he doesn’t understand why he keeps losing so it must be something wrong with the Falcons organization. They blew a 28-3 lead. Not him. So he goes to San Francisco and Jimmy G leads them to a Super Bowl but it’s Jimmy G’s fault for not being able to make throws in the Super Bowl even though Shanahan coached him all year long and is fully aware of what throws Jimmy can and cannot make yet opted to call plays he knows Jimmy G can’t complete.

Then he trades 3 first-round draft picks to move up in the 2021 draft for Trey Lance who made only 4 starts before they sent him away to Dallas. But it’s not Shanahan’s fault Trey Lance sucks and had no business being drafted with the no. 3 overall pick.

The truth is, it’s probably a combination of everything. Steve Wilks is off and the types of guys who no one likes always find themselves in disadvantaged circumstances like working with a head coach who irons the brim of his ball caps and doesn’t know the fucking overtime rules.

Steve Wilks will be fine. He just had a Top 5 defense. He may have missed the hiring window but this is the NFL. Coaches get fired every week. He’ll be back. And he will be blamed. So it goes.