Wilks sat out the 2024 season after being fired from the San Francisco 49ers as their defensive coordinator following the team’s Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
That year under Wilks, the Niners ranked eighth in overall defence and third in scoring. Before his one-year tenure with San Fran, Wilks went 6-6 as the interim head coach for the Carolina Panthers in 2022 after being promoted from defensive pass game coordinator and secondary coach.
Wilks has bounced around the league quite a bit since his NFL coaching debut with the Chicago Bears in 2006. He spent the next two seasons in Chicago as a defensive backs coach before moving to the San Diego Chargers for the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
In 2011, he was promoted to assistant coach for the Chargers before leaving to join the Panthers, where he spent the next six seasons (2012-2017).
That final year he was promoted to defensive coordinator of Carolina for the first time in his NFL history before accepting a head coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals a year later, which only lasted a year after going 3-13.
He then spent one year as the Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator (2019), which ranked 22nd overall and 20th in scoring.
Banjo and Heiden
As for Banjo, he spent the last two years as the Denver Broncos assistant special teams coordinator after spending four years in both Green Bay and Arizona respectively, and three years with the New Orleans Saints, as a player.
Heiden was previously with current Jets head coach Aaron Glenn in Detroit as the Lions’ tight ends coach for the past two seasons. He was also the Cardinals’ assistant offensive line coach in 2018 when Wilks was the head coach.
