By Jay Skurski
Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Dave Wannstedt knows growing pains will come with the territory protected by his young starting cornerbacks.
That was on display last Sunday in the Bills’ loss to the New York Jets in the season opener. Wannstedt said the Jets had prepared some combinations and plays rookie Stephon Gilmore and to a lesser extent second-year man Aaron Williams had yet to see.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a learning on the move type of deal,” Wannstedt said today, before adding, “there was nothing that happened in the game that isn’t easily corrected.”
So how do they go about that?
“As they become more confident [they] will play a little bit faster. That was probably the biggest thing as I look back on it. We were reacting to what they were doing rather than being aggressive enough,” Wannstedt said.
That was especially evident at cornerback. So evident, in fact, that General Manager Buddy Nix said on his weekly WGR radio show that “we were so soft on the corners for some reason and obviously we’ve got to correct that.”
Wannstedt is confident that will happen Sunday.
“We’ll play majority press. It depends on the coverage and the sets and so forth. We’ll mix it up on them, but we’re more of a press team than not,” he said. “How aggressive we are with the press has a lot to do with confidence.
“We had a great week of practice. I think the guys will bounce back and I’m excited to go out and see us play.”
