Still looking.
The San Francisco 49ers have yet to announce their hire for the vacancy at defensive coordinator. It may initially seem alarming given that it has been 10 days since they fired Steve Wilks, but the 49ers don’t need to be in a rush at all.
They are the only team in need of a defensive coordinator right now, so they have a full array of options to choose from without pressure. It is better for them to take their time and carefully consider who is the best fit. I’d imagine the toughest challenge for them is selecting someone who is internal versus external.
There are quite a few intriguing external names for the 49ers to hire like Bill Belichick, Mike Vrabel, and Pete Carroll. But I think that the 49ers are likely to avoid an external hire at defensive coordinator. Whoever they bring from the outside will likely, to a certain degree, have to conform to what the 49ers do on defense.
For Wilks, it was playing more coverage than his typical blitzing and then coming down from the booth to the sidelines. Even with that, he still would receive some public slights from Kyle Shanahan and the defensive players. That is largely what the 49ers will want to avoid. They want their players bought in and backing their coach, which is something I don’t think can happen with an external hire.
With an internal hire, the players will at least work with that coach. They will cut him some slack and even make him feel at ease. I doubt Wilks felt at ease at all throughout the season given how players like Nick Bosa would say that Wilks is “still adjusting” and such. Not to mention that an internal hire already knows the ins and outs of what makes the defense successful and what works for his players.
He can also work extremely well with the position coaches and knows how to tie all phases of the defense together. I fully expect an internal hire from the 49ers. I have been advocating for defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks since he has been there from the beginning in 2017 and gave an extensive breakdown as to why he would work.
Either way, the 49ers will likely hire from within to avoid what happened this past season.
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