The Giants need a new defensive coordinator with Patrick Graham gone to Las Vegas, and a new name has surfaced: former Arizona Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks.
Per Pro Football Network, Wilks interviewed with the Giants for the job over the weekend after Graham's departure, joining a group of interviewees that also includes former Ravens DC Wink Martindale, former Bears DC Sean Desai, and current Titans assistant (and longtime NFL DC and head coach) Jim Schwartz.
Teryl Austin had also interviewed, but the Steelers decided to promote him from secondary coach to defensive coordinator – another role Graham interviewed for – on Sunday.
Wilks, 52, infamously spent just one 3-13 season as head coach of the Cardinals in 2018, he and quarterback Josh Rosen both jettisoned for Kliff Kingsbury and eventual No. 1 overall pick Kyler Murray.
He spent 2019 as Cleveland’s defensive coordinator under Freddie Kitchens – who was an assistant on Joe Judge’s staff last season – then was out of football in 2020 before taking the same role at the University of Missouri.
Wilks’ coaching career also includes 10 years as a defensive assistant and one as a head coach in the collegiate ranks, and he spent 11 seasons as a defensive backs coach with Chicago, San Diego, and Carolina before being named Panthers’ defensive coordinator in 2017.
Including Austin, who began his career 30 years ago as a graduate assistant at Penn State, all of the reported candidates have lengthy tenures as NFL or collegiate assistants on their resume. Martindale, seen by some as the favorite, was let go by the Ravens recently after 10 years there – the last four as DC – and also spent 10 years in the college game and seven as an assistant with Oakland and Denver.
Desai, the youngest of the candidates at 38, began his career at Temple in 2006, and after seven years in the NCAA ranks with the Owls, Miami, and Boston College, he spent nine years with the Bears, six as a defensive quality control assistant and two as the safeties coach before ascending to DC in 2021.
Schwartz, the only one with head coaching experience, began his career in 1989 as a graduate assistant as Maryland, and spent four years in the collegiate ranks and three as a personnel scout for the pre-Ravens era Browns before being named outside linebackers coach when that franchise moved to Baltimore in 1996. He spent three years in that spot and 10 in Tennessee – including eight as DC – before serving as the Lions’ head coach from 2009-13.
He was then Buffalo’s DC in 2014 and the Eagles’ DC from 2016-20 before serving as a senior defensive assistant in Tennessee last season.
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