One of Steve Wilks’s favorite go-to lines with his players is “Don’t let ‘it’ get in the way.”

Adversity is always lurking around the corner, waiting to disrupt your plans, Wilks tells them. But “it” can’t distract you or derail you from completing the task at hand.

“It” came for Wilks in October, not far into his first season as defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers. A three-game losing streak exposed some of the vulnerabilities of a defense that he took over from his predecessor, DeMeco Ryans, and brought into question his fit with an organization with Super Bowl aspirations. Because he was the only significant change from the league’s best defense a season earlier, Wilks became the go-to guess in the blame game. Coach Kyle Shanahan criticized him for calling a blitz that led to a touchdown in a loss to Minnesota and later moved Wilks from the coaches’ booth to the sideline for game days.

Wilks had to show his players – and his new team – how he handles “it.”

“At times in life, so many people are great to give advice, but then, all of a sudden, when that same situation hits your doorstep, are you really listening to your own words?” Wilks said in a telephone interview. “Not being a strong-minded individual, it’s going to be very difficult and tough to come out of that situation. But my previous experiences, being a head coach, dealing with difficult stuff, I knew we were going to be able to come through it.”

Wilks could have pointed fingers (the offense scored just 17 points in each of those losses). He could have mentioned that he was instructed not to deviate much from a scheme that worked under Ryans and before him Robert Saleh or that he couldn’t bring any assistants along with him. Or he could have sulked and pondered what he stepped into (the new guy is the easiest target if things go south).

But that wouldn’t have put the 49ers (12-5) where they are this weekend: the No. 1 seed in the NFC and Super Bowl favorites, hosting the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night in the divisional round at Levi’s Stadium.

The defense regained its “smash-mouth” approach, Wilks said, and came back from that midseason malaise to hold opponents under 20 points in each of the next five games. Dominant performances against Jacksonville and Philadelphia helped send those teams into tailspins. The move to the sideline wasn’t simply cosmetic; it allowed him to communicate and better relate to players who he was still learning. And by looking within, Wilks came to see that the defense needed to evolve; a refusal to tinker over time made the 49ers predictable.

“It wasn’t his fault, but he’s a real stand-up guy. He stayed himself. He said everybody’s got to get better. Including himself,” 49ers cornerback Charvarius “Mooney” Ward said in a telephone interview. “We stood 10 toes behind him. He stood up like a man and took all that on the chin, and we been balling out ever since.”

After a recent run of confronting the “its” in the NFL, Wilks has proved resilient. In 2018, he completed a 25-year climb from being an assistant coach at a small historically Black college, where he sold sodas and snacks to subsidize his meager salary, to NFL head coach – only to have the Arizona Cardinals fire him after one season. He is perhaps best known for joining coach Brian Flores in a 2022 racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, with Wilks alleging that he was not given a fair opportunity in Arizona and used as a “bridge coach.” (A federal judge ruled that the case against the NFL should go to trial and that most of the other claims, including Wilks’s against Arizona, belonged in arbitration. Both sides are appealing.) Last season, Wilks served 12 games as interim coach for his hometown Carolina Panthers, leading a team that started 1-4 under Matt Rhule to a 7-10 finish.

“What helped me is what I learned from Arizona. I said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to get this job, so I’m going to do it my way,’ ” Wilks said of his interim experience in Charlotte. “The culture that we built in a short period of time, the players bought into it.”

Panthers owner David Tepper didn’t buy in, though, hiring Frank Reich instead. Now that franchise is staging its second coaching search in as many years after it fired Reich 11 games into the season. Wilks, meanwhile, has completed interviews with the Los Angeles Chargers and Atlanta Falcons for the work he has done in one season with the 49ers, an organization that has produced three of the NFL’s past eight minority head coaching hires: Saleh, who is Lebanese American; Ryans, who is Black; and the Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel, who is biracial.

“It was a no-brainer when I got the opportunity to come here,” Wilks said. “This is probably – no, not probably. This is the best place I’ve ever been culture-wise as well as organizational-wise.”

Wilks, 54, brought with him a reputation for helping to turn around defensive units in San Diego, Chicago and Carolina, reaching the Super Bowl with the latter two. The 49ers didn’t need fixing. But Wilks saw opportunities for improvement with a talented group that featured Fred Warner and Nick Bosa: They surrendered too many big plays, and their cornerbacks could influence the game by taking more chances.

That early rough patch was overcome by Wilks staying committed to what he believed while being flexible enough to adjust.

“I had confidence to be able to come in and get the job done,” Wilks said. “But also … being able to humble myself to learn something different and not think it’s all about my ideas. It’s easier for one person to change than to have everybody change.”

Wilks has been vindicated. Warner was a unanimous all-pro selection for the second year in a row, from a defense that ranked third in points allowed at 17.5. Ward was named all-pro for the first time in his sixth season, from a secondary that generated the most interceptions in the NFL and held opposing quarterbacks to just 5.9 yards per pass attempt.

Ward didn’t know much about Wilks before the coach arrived, but he heard from his peers that the new guy, who played defensive back at Appalachian State, was “a cornerback guru.” During a breakout season in which Ward had a league-leading 23 pass deflections and five interceptions, he credited Wilks with putting him in better positions to thrive and instilling confidence through motivational words and humor.

“He always tell me I’m a bad M-Fer,” Ward said. When his interceptions began to rack up this season, Ward said, Wilks told him that whenever he walked by 49ers President John Lynch he should start tapping his pockets to remind Lynch that he needs to get paid. “Coach Wilks is one of those guys that can make you laugh, that you love to be around.”

Wilks doesn’t know how much longer he will be around, but he’s not in a rush to go anywhere.

“I did it in Arizona. I had the opportunity to do it in Carolina. I felt like I proved that I can do it,” Wilks said of being a head coach. “It’s always good to have opportunities. I’m looking through a different lens now. It’s not about just leaving. It’s about making sure that if you do, there’s purpose on the other side and if not … our quest here is to do everything we can to win a world championship. And I think we’ve positioned ourselves to do that. Being here for the long haul is not a disappointing thing for me.”

And Wilks can already see that he’s having an influence. At a recent practice, he stepped on the field and noticed that it was raining. But as he looked at the players, “I heard the guys just yelling at me, ‘Wilks, don’t let ‘it’ get in the way,’ ” he said with a laugh. “I just love the fact that they’re listening.”