Captain Munnerlyn to the rescue? Maybe. At worst, Munnerlyn will help fill a major hole in the roster after Buffalo was forced to send defensive back, E.J. Gaines, to the injured reserve this past weekend.
Munnerlyn is no stranger to a Sean McDermott defense as the two spent three years in Carolina together when McDermott was the Defensive Coordinator of the Panthers. On Sunday, McDermott would address the media and discuss the addition of their new corner.
Q: What does Captain Munnerlyn bring to the defensive end?
A: It’s been a few years now since the last time we worked together but what I remember is the competitiveness, the toughness, he’s obviously played in the system before so he has some familiarity with our system both inside the slot and out at corner. We will see how he does and how he progresses here, he’s been out of it for a little bit so he has to be put back in shape.
Q: Do you think he is going to be your nickelback in the outside corner?
A: We’ll see, that’s where he played probably more so in the course of the past four of five years. Again, we just want to get him acclimated to what we do and his new surroundings, new teammates and we will take it one day at a time.
Q: What do you see when you see film of Captain and how similar is your defense here as to what he has been accustomed to in Carolina?
A: With defense, I like to believe it evolves every year and stays current with the trends and what not. That said, there’s a core that is probably about the same as to what he knew back when we worked together in Carolina. Like I said before, in respect to Captain, the things that jump out even when we watched him play on TV last year maybe was the competitiveness and all that hasn’t changed. I think that’s in his DNA.
Q: Captain posted a picture of you two together saying,“let’s get it coach.” Are you excited about your relationship going back to how it was in Carolina?
A: Hopefully that was a good picture. We’ve stayed in touch and in this job players come and go, coaches come and go and that’s the hard part of the job. The satisfying parts of the job are moments like that where you can stay in touch with players. It’s gratifying as a coach. In this case where I moved on to here from some of the players that I coached at Carolina and Philadelphia, my two previous stops and that’s the neat part about it, the relationships that you are able to form over the year. It’s neat that now we are with Kurt [Coleman] and some of the other players. It doesn’t always happen for it to come back full circle to where we can work together again but it’s satisfying.
Buffalo finished the 2018 season with the number one ranked pass defense and hope Munnerlyn will help them pick up right where they left off.
