Kurtenbach

More importantly, I don't see anyone on the sidelines who can create that kind of energy.

Head coach Kyle Shanahan is one of the best offensive playcallers in the game and has shown he can run an effective operation in Santa Clara.

But he is not a rah-rah guy. Sure, he'll lean into refs, the media, and NFL Players Association player directors, but it is rare to see Shanahan unloading on a player on the sideline. I can think of only one time he did it with Jimmy Garoppolo.

Shanahan is more of the passive-aggressive type — if Brock Purdy throws a bad interception, Shanahan is liable to avoid eye contact with him as he comes off the field.

It isn't a question of right or wrong. He's just a thinker, not a yeller.

The Niners' head coach is also so focused on offense that he delegates nearly all of the defensive responsibilities to his defensive coordinator.

They run their team, Shanahan runs his.

And Shanahan did something quite self-aware when he hired his first defensive coordinator, Robert Saleh: He hired a rahrah man.

Saleh is a smart guy — you weren't going to beat him tactically — but unlike Shanahan, he is a yeller.

His emotions were external. He was perpetually liable to bash his head

open by headbutting a helmeted player.

Saleh even had a motto for his high-intensity temperament: All Gas, No Brakes.

He brought the juice to his defense, which brought juice to the whole team.

And when Saleh left to become head coach of the Jets, Shanahan promoted linebackers coach DeMeco Ryans to defensive coordinator.

Being a former NFL linebacker, Ryans knew what players needed to be at their best.

A strong game plan was part of that package, no doubt.

But being an energetic force on the sideline was just as important.

He made sure his guys were so fired up, they couldn't think on the field.

“We allow our guys just to go and shoot your gun,” Ryans used to say. “Nobody's hesitating.”

Both Saleh and Ryans were so amped up they required “get-back” guys on the sideline during games, responsible for ensuring they didn't run onto the field.

Now Wilks needs a getdown coach — as in Shanahan had to tell him to get down to the sidelines following this bye.

Wilks will organize the defense. He'll be a positive influence. It made him a great interim head coach.

But Wilks will never need a get-back coach. If you've watched his press conferences, you get it.

Wilks was the defensive coordinator at my alma mater — Mizzou — in 2021.

An NFL head coach coordinating

a college defense? Sounded like a big win.

The Tigers finished with the 113th-ranked defense in the country. It wasn't for lack of talent, either.

It turns out that the kids didn't need high-level instruction — they needed someone to convince them to run into another guy. They needed to think less and hit more.

It's not Wilks' fault this Niners' defense is juicefree — it's Shanahan's. He failed to recognize what made Saleh and Ryans great. He failed to understand the necessary formula for success on that side of the ball for this team.

He hired someone like him. That was never going to work.

Like Shanahan, Wilks is an intellectual. A football tactician. A professor. He's a thinker, not a yeller.

And while I'm sure that made the interview process enjoyable, the fact is that thinking on the field is death to a defense, even at the NFL level.

There's a weekday temperament — studious, curious, cerebral — and a Sunday temperament — go break bones.

Wilks does not have that Sunday mode and halfway through the season, it's rubbing off on his defenders.

Think about all the cutaways television broadcasts make to the coaches' booth during a game. Have you ever seen a lick of emotion from Wilks when he's on camera? No. That's not his style.

Why would that change

if he moved to the sideline?

(Juxtapose that with Dallas defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. He's in the booth, but you often see him standing — he's living and dying with every play. Is it any surprise his defense is as kinetic as any in the NFL?)

Wilks wants a birds-eye view of the action. He's a secondary-first coordinator and the All-22 provides far more information in that regard.

But more information isn't what this defense needs.

It needs someone to convince it to run through the brick wall again and again and again.

And that's not Wilks. It never will be.

So where can the Niners' defense find that charge?

Here's an outside-thebox idea — literally.

Niners general manager John Lynch was one of the toughest dudes of the NFL's modern era — a human torpedo coming in from the secondary.

He's in this job and not broadcasting because he loves being part of a team. He needs the action.

Sitting in a luxury box for most of the game, he looks forlorn.

I can't think of a better person to charge up this defense.

The Niners cannot win if “limp” is the team's new defensive identity.

It's time for Lynch to take off the suit, get into some logo-laden Nike apparel, and start dishing out headbutts.