A day after saying he expected all his coaches back next season, Kyle Shanahan has fired defensive coordinator Steve Wilks.
This one shocked me. I cannot fathom what the fuck Shanahan is thinking. If results matter, having the seasons #2 scoring defense, getting 2 turnovers and containing the best QB for 3 quarters in the Super Bowl should get you alook at a head coaching job, not get fired.
What am I missing? Is Shanahan that in need of a scapegoat? Is he just a dick?
His defense allowed one touchdown in regulation in the Super Bowl. And that was after the muffed punt gave the Chiefs the ball inside the 20.
Like you, I am baffled by this firing.
It looks like some of the reasoning is that their defense got seriously run on late in the season, and in the playoffs.
And, Wilks had only been on the staff for this past season, after their old DC, DeMeco Ryans, got hired away to be the Texans’ head coach.
If I had to guess, Shanahan decided he didn’t like Wilks as much as he did during interviews.
Yeah. Shanahan liked the defense he had in place under Saleh and Ryan. Wilks changed it just too much.
49ers defense:
2023: 3rd in points allowed (298), 8th in yards allowed (5167)
2022: 1st in points allowed (277), 2nd in yards allowed (5110)
So there was a bit of a dropoff from 22 to 23.
Looking at some advanced stats, the 49ers defense was in the lower half this year.
One of the big reasons why the betting trended heavily towards the Chiefs as the game got closer was because of the number of areas where the 49ers defense looked like a huge liability versus KC. They near the bottom of the league in pressure rates and on 3rd down. These defensive liabilities showed up with an atrocious 53% success rate in the 2 playoff games before the Super Bowl.
They had to come back from behind to beat both the Packers and the Lions in those games, and in both cases, it could be argued that it wasn’t that the Niners rose to the occasion, so much as their opponents squandered opportunities to put the game away.
I can buy the argument that the 49ers had such a good defense because of talent. That passes the eye test. They have quite a few “guys” on that side (the kind of players good enough to be known to non-SF football fans). If the defense was good in spite of the DC, and not because of him, then it might have been a good move.
Does anyone believe that if the Niners had won the Super Bowl, Wilks would have been fired?
How is this ‘success rate’ defined? I’ve seen a couple of different metrics that are used.
I don’t know exactly where the stat I read came from, but this is the definition that I found. I assume it’s somewhat standard.
A play is considered successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on 1st down, 60% of yards-to-go on 2nd down and 100% of yards-to-go on 3rd or 4th down.
I think Marty Schottenheimer and Sam Rutgliano might disagree with you on Belichek’s run being the best the Browns’ had. So might a little guy named Paul Brown
I meant they did not have any better coaches since him until Stefanaski (so 2+ decades), but fair enough
It’s true that they’ve had a rotten streak of coaches since they came back into the league, but I don’t think even Butch Davis was materially worse than Belichek.
Honestly, Belichek’s career is pretty awful when you account for the fact that his teams were buoyed by one of the greatest QBs of all time who was willing to play for team friendly contracts in order to beef up the rest of the roster.
People can go around and around on this, but the first few years of Brady’s career, he could rely on a stellar defense and hand off to good RBs and still did ok (well, did great, but whatever). The first three championships really were more on the coach than the QB.
The last three championships? Yeah, Brady carried a lot more of the load there and was responsible for a lot more of the credit.
And that’s not even getting to the DC tenure with the Giants. Or a 11-5 season (albeit missing the playoffs) with friggin’ Matt Cassel under center.
Putting all that on a single great QB smacks of recency bias. I’m not going to argue he didn’t lose a step over the last decade or so but it’s ludicrous to put the rest on one player.
Not Beef, the team underperformed on offense for the second straight year, even with a raft of injuries. At some point, ownership is going to want results and not excuses, and particularly given that Stefanski is supposed be an offensive guru, something had to change. Losing Callahan is going to have a major detriment to the offense, as well, and Stefanski may have just not trust Van Pelt without someone looking over his shoulder. Dorsey might be a lot newer to the job, but the offense in Buffalo flourished under him. Van Pelt has only ever been serviceable.
By 2004, Brady threw for 3700 yards and tossed 28 touchdowns. I’m not saying his defense wasn’t stellar, but by then, the conversation about best young QB in the league was essentially down to him and Peyton (and maybe Brees? That was such a touchy conversation because of the whole Phillip Rivers deal)
Not sure there are enough eye roll emojis on the entire internet for this comment.
In the last 18 seasons, the Patriots defense has never ranked lower than 15th in scoring defense, has 15 top 10 ranks, and 7 in the top 5. He has 302 wins and 6 Super Bowl wins.
Earlier this season someone wrote about how Sean Payton could be credited for Brees because he didn’t reach his greatness until he went to New Orleans. I was about to argue, but then I looked up his numbers in San Diego. I didn’t look them up again right now before making this post, but at the time I remember thinking they weren’t bad but they also weren’t future Hall of Famer, either, so I believe I just conceded the point without even posting.