Every year, the 49ers’ defense begs the question: have they somehow improved?
Despite their elite standing last year, The Athletic’s Matt Barrows thinks the group could take another step. He joined Murph & Mac on Monday morning before the start of training camp this week and said Steve Wilks’ presence could be substantial.
Barrows pointed out that Wilks’ expertise is with the secondary. He’s a man known for developing cornerbacks, a group which could be easily argued as the weakest link on the 49ers’ roster.
If he can do that on this team, it’s a menacing proposition.
“They just don’t have a lot of established depth there,” Barrows said. “And I think a guy like Steve Wilks is coming in and he’s looking at Lenoir and he’s looking at some of these other younger players — Sam Womack and Ambry Thomas — and this is what he does. He develops these guys and he wants press cornerbacks, physical cornerbacks.
“He’s got a great model on the team in Charvarius Ward. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with his expertise at that position, whether he can get some of these guys to take that next step and if he does, then that group becomes as strong as the safety group, as strong as the linebacker group, as strong as the defensive line.
“I think the entire defense, as good as it was last year, has the real possibility to be one of the more powerful ones that we’ve seen in the last, what, quarter century.”
It’s high praise for a team that was one of the stingiest in the league last season and which lost the likes of Samson Ebukam, Charles Omenihu and Jimmie Ward. But if Wilks can get the most out of the secondary, who knows how much this defense could improve.
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