Untried Wilks faces uphill battle
No matter what Steve Wilks said Tuesday during his interview with the Giants, he cannot change the facts on his résumé. He has no previous NFL head-coaching experience and only one year as an NFL defensive coordinator, and it remains to be seen if that will fly with team ownership.
Wilks, 48, interviewed at the Giants team facility with co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch, general manager Dave Gettleman and Kevin Abrams, the assistant general manager. This was the first interview Tisch attended, although he has been briefed on the previous interviews with Steve Spagnuolo, Matt Patricia, Josh McDaniels and Pat Shurmur, and will participate in the next round of meetings. The Giants will meet Wednesday with Eric Studesville, who was the Broncos running backs coach and assistant head coach until he was dismissed following the season. Studesville was the Giants’ running back coach from 2001-03 on Jim Fassel’s staff.
Wilks is scheduled to interview with the Cardinals on Wednesday and the Colts on Thursday. Wilks is the first Giants candidate to satisfy the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview a minority candidate. The Studesville interview will also satisfy that requirement.
Wilks’ candidacy could come down to this: Does an endorsement by Gettleman and possibly an eye-opening impression at the interview overshadow the expressed desires of what the Giants want in their next head coach? When Mara introduced Gettleman as the new general manager on Dec. 29, he made it fairly clear what he is looking for.
“I think, obviously, it has to be somebody who has either had head-coaching experience or at least has been a coordinator for a significant period of time,’’ Mara said, “because I think if you don’t have that, the odds are really stacked against you. It’s not impossible for you to succeed without that, but I think the more experience that that individual has as either a head coach or as a coordinator on either side of the ball, I think is very important.’’
Wilks has been an NFL coach for 12 years but only one of those years as a coordinator — this past season with the Panthers. Gettleman was the general manager in Carolina for four years and got to see Wilks operate as the defensive backs coach. For the past three years, Wilks was also the assistant head coach and Ron Rivera, the head coach, allowed Wilks to address the entire team on a regular basis. Perhaps that experience will assuage Giants ownership that Wilks, considered a charismatic coach and strict disciplinarian, is worth a shot.