Grant Cohn discusses what he thinks is the best part of this year's San Francisco 49ers, who are clearly one of the best teams in the NFL.
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00:00 So there's obviously a lot of reason to have optimism.
00:05 I think even coming into the season,
00:10 there were a lot of folks that felt like
00:11 this 49ers team was gonna be legit.
00:13 Are you more impressed with what you've seen
00:17 from the offense or the defense this year
00:19 or the special teams?
00:20 I mean, what part of this group has actually
00:24 maybe taken you by surprise a little bit
00:26 in the way that they've performed?
00:28 - Well, the offense is getting all the headlines
00:31 because Brock Purdy's such a great story
00:34 and Christian McCaffrey's a great player
00:35 and Kyle Shanahan's an offensive coach,
00:37 but it's kind of just picking up
00:39 where it left off last year.
00:40 If you were watching last year,
00:41 the offense was doing this with Brock Purdy
00:43 and Christian McCaffrey up until the playoffs.
00:47 - Right.
00:48 - So I mean, it's remarkable that Brock Purdy
00:50 could do this coming off a big elbow surgery,
00:53 but the defense is interesting
00:55 because D'Amico Ryan's is gone.
00:58 He was the coordinator.
00:59 He's the head coach of the Houston Texas now
01:01 and the Niners hired Steve Wilks.
01:03 And it was tough as like,
01:04 they asked him to basically run their system.
01:07 They're like, "We like the wide nine.
01:08 "We have our wide nine D-line coach, Chris Kocerec.
01:11 "You come here and figure out what we do
01:12 "and learn what we do and then call your games."
01:16 And he's been great.
01:17 He's adopted the wide nine.
01:18 He has improved the defense.
01:21 It was the number one defense in the league last year
01:24 and they were very vulnerable to mobile quarterbacks.
01:28 Every time they lost last year,
01:29 it was a quarterback who could move.
01:30 They would give up scramble lanes left and right
01:33 and they would give up big plays down the field.
01:35 Now they haven't given up big plays on the field yet
01:38 and they don't give up many runs to quarterbacks anymore.
01:41 Like they fixed their two biggest Achilles heels
01:44 on the defense and Steve Wilks did it before Halloween.
01:47 I mean, he's--
01:48 - Wilks was our defensive coordinator a couple of years ago.
01:51 - Okay, fair enough.
01:52 - It was 2019.
01:53 - Steve Wilks.
01:54 Everyone goes to Cleveland, man.
01:55 It's just something about it.
01:56 - It does kind of feel that way.
01:57 - Yeah.
01:59 He's doing great.
01:59 He's in the running for coordinator of the year,
02:01 I think, along with Jim Schwartz.
02:03 Should be.
02:04 - Well, it wouldn't surprise me if it worked out that way.