A day after completing an interview with Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, the Falcons have completed another two interviews with Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan and 49ers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks.
I’ll begin with the candidate that I’m less interested in — Callahan. He’s garnering interest because of his work in Cincinnati with Joe Burrow, helping build one of the more prolific offenses in the league. Even when Burrow went down with an injury, the Bengals offense didn’t fall off a cliff with Jake Browning.
It did, however, taper toward the end of the season. He should credited in some capacity with helping Burrow develop, which should certainly interest a Falcons team that has yet to develop a quarterback since Matt Ryan.
He got his start with the Broncos as a coaching assistant in 2010 but quickly moved up the ranks in Denver over the next five years, ending as an offensive assistant before moving on to Detroit as the Lions quarterbacks coach. With a quick stop in Las Vegas under the same title, he moved on to Cincinnati in 2019 as the Bengals offensive coordinator.
Though the Bengals offense has been quite explosive the last two seasons, much of that should be attributed to the talent on the roster. Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd should receive a bulk of the credit, not Callahan. Obviously, he deserves some, but this seems like an eerily similar situation to the Broncos hiring Nathanial Hackett a couple of years ago.
The Packers offense was so great because of Aaron Rodgers and Matt LaFleur, not the offensive coordinator who didn’t even call plays. Be wary of coordinators who don’t actually call the offense.
That isn’t the case with Steve Wilks, though. The current 49ers defensive coordinator should be familiar to Falcons fans. He worked with the Panthers from 2012 to 2017 as a defensive backs coach, assistant head coach, and defensive coordinator over five seasons.
He was then hired by the Cardinals in 2018 as the head coach but only lasted one season in an un-winnable situation. The reality is Wilks got completely screwed and was never going to be the long-term head coach in the desert.
He returned back to Carolina in 2022 as the defensive pass game coordinator under Matt Rhule, who was fired with 12 games left in the season, which were coached by Wilks as the interim.
He’s a respected defensive mind, has over 15 years of NFL experience, and led the Panthers to a more than respectable 6-6 record as interim. It’s not the best record, but Carolina’s roster was devoid of talent.
It wouldn’t be the sexiest hire, but the Falcons could do much worse than Steve Wilks, like Brian Callahan.
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John Byrum/Icon Sportswire
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