Wilks up next on Big Blue’s dance card
Titans 22, Chiefs 21 Jaguars 10, Bills 3 US. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis Sunday, Feb. 4 6:30 p.m., NBC Falcons 26, Rams 13 Saints 31, Panthers 26 STEVE Wilks “will be a great head coach” — at least one of his former players thinks so.
Wilks, 48, Carolina’s defensive coordinator, is expected to interview Monday in Charlotte for the Giants’ head coaching vacancy following his Panthers’ playoff elimination in a 31-26 loss Sunday night at New Orleans.
Giants GM Dave Gettleman and Wilks have a strong relationship from four years together in Carolina from 2013-16. One knock against Wilks is that he doesn’t have the NFL head coaching experience that Giants president John Mara said on Dec. 29 he “ideally” prefers. Mara also said he wants his coach to be “somebody that’s going to be able to command the room when he stands up there in front of that team” following Ben McAdoo’s firing.
But the Daily News caught up with one of Wilks’ former players at Notre Dame, where he coached the Irish defensive backs for one season in 2004, and received a surprisingly strong endorsement of Wilks’ candidacy — surprising especially considering the Notre Dame secondary had a down year in ’04. “He’ll definitely command the room,” the player said of Wilks. “He’s a hard-nosed coach, focuses on attention to detail. I always remember him saying, ‘Why are we high in our back pedal?’ It has actually helped me in my life currently. In life he showed me the little things make bigger things, really focusing on every detail. He’ll be a great head coach.”
Another former player recalled Wilks as being “extremely disciplined,” and such characterizations might be music to ownership’s ears since the Giants are trying to improve not only their team but, in Gettleman’s words, the “culture.”
Gettleman already told Giants players on breakup day he won’t tolerate the behavior that poisoned the building in 2017. The Giants don’t want to give up on malcontent first-round picks Eli Apple and Ereck Flowers, especially Apple given his talent level. And a GM-coach tandem of Gettleman and Wilks could accomplish the raised expectations and united front they are seeking to either get the best out of such players or send them packing.
That said, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who interviewed with the Giants on Friday, still feels like the home run hire here — with a blockbuster trade for Bill Belichick being the grand slam. Gettleman and the Giants are keenly interested in Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, whom they also interviewed Friday, but he is considered the favorite to join Lions GM Bob Quinn, a former Patriots exec, in Detroit.
McDaniels, 41, would bring an offense with him, something the Giants have sorely lacked.
Wilks could be a good hire but for one, his defense got torched in Sunday night’s first half in New Orleans. And second, it’s unknown how he would address the offensive side of the ball. In 2011 he was assistant head coach to Norv Turner with the Chargers, though, and Turner knows quarterbacks and would be a great hire as Giants offensive coordinator on a Wilks staff.