As soon as the San Francisco 49ers lost the Super Bowl, that felt to me like the end of the road for Steve Wilks. It would be interesting to see what they would have done if they had won the Super Bowl because Wilks was toeing the line already, but they didn’t and Kyle Shanahan’s micro-management of Wilks in the playoffs was a telltale sign that the end was coming: The 49ers fired Wilks on Thursday despite having a top-three defense and reaching the Super Bowl.
SI’s Albert Breer immediately thought of Brandon Staley as the most obvious replacement.