Golden Nuggets: 119 days until 49ers football

Don’t expect 49ers defense to change much under new DC Steve Wilks

“I think you have to embrace the success that they’ve had here,” Wilks on Friday told reporters in his first press conference. “I think it is a foundation that we all agree we wanted to keep and I think it is an opportunity as we go through the process, which we already have, to try to tweak things a little bit. I still think there’s room for improvement. If you talk to the players, they would tell you the same, so when it’s not broke, you don’t really want to try to fix it and once again, we’ve had a lot of success around here and we just want to continue to build on that.”

49ers appear to have answer for open nickel CB spot

“Oliver is someone that I had the opportunity to go against being in that division,” Wilks said. “And we didn’t know exactly what was going to happen in free agency with Jimmie (Ward) and when that didn’t happen, we wanted to make sure that we sort of got the best nickel in free agency and that’s what we went out and did, so I’m excited about Oliver. He’s long, he’s physical, can tackle, can cover, he’s going to be a good blitzer for us, everything that we do within this defense.”

Why there’s no rest for potentially weary 49ers in 2023 schedule

“That’s because the 49ers and division rival Rams will play an NFL-high four games against teams that will come off bye weeks — twice as much as any other franchise next season.”

Shanahan declares 49ers QB Darnold is ‘unbelievable thrower’

“There are only a few people on this planet who can throw at the level that you need to throw at to succeed in this league,” Shanahan said. “Sam is one of those guys who can throw like that. That’s why Jimmy was a second-round draft pick coming from Eastern Illinois, because he was such a gifted thrower. And then it’s how do you play after that.”

49ers’ Ji’Ayir Brown: a fresh face with a familiar story (paywall)

“Brown and Hufanga share more similarities. Brown said Wednesday that his love for football stems from playing on Pop Warner teams with so many of his cousins while growing up in Trenton, N.J. In 2021, after he was drafted, Hufanga explained why he played with such “joy” in college...“I did play with three other cousins at USC, which is incredible,” Hufanga said. “That makes the game even that much more fun.”