When the Bills promoted Dave Wannstedt to defensive coordinator, it was expected that they would go to a 4-3 look next season.
Head coach Chan Gailey confirmed that move on Monday, although it shouldn’t be too difficult a switch for the team to make. They played a lot of four-man fronts in the second half of the 2011 season and they never had ideal personnel to play a 3-4 look after making the switch to it a couple of years ago. Gailey was quick to caution that 4-3 is only going to be the base defense, though.
“If you look around the league today people are playing four-man fronts and three-man fronts, they’re playing a little bit of everything,” Gailey said, via the Buffalo News. “We’re going to try and put our guys in position to be successful, whatever that position might be. If it’s odd spacing sometimes or even spacing sometimes.”
How all the players fit is still being worked out, but Gailey said he expects to have Kelvin Sheppard at middle linebacker to start the season. Kyle Williams and Marcell Dareus should be the defensive tackles with Nick Barnett and Chris Kelsay also likely to see a lot of time. Shawne Merriman’s health makes a question mark and, regardless of what they get from him, the team will need to upgrade on the edges before next season.