Willie Gay Film Review: Is He Ready For A More Prominent Role?
Willie Gay Jr. was a 2nd-round pick for the Chiefs in 2020. Gay didn't get a lot of playing time last season, and with the pick of Nick Bolton, how can the Chiefs use Gay?
Kansas City has had a rough history of linebackers, at least in my lifetime. I was blessed enough to watch Derrick Johnson from 2013 until the end of his career (great until the last year) but besides that? It hasn’t been great. Kansas City has had one good linebacker in 25 years. They’ve also lacked any linebacker (in my lifetime) with elite movement skills for the position besides DJ. It’s a bunch of thicker, slower linebackers who can’t cover.
That changed last year, with the selection of Willie Gay Jr. with the 63rd pick in the draft. Gay tested as one of the best athletes of all-time at the linebacker position, combining rare speed and explosiveness with density. If you were building the ideal linebacker in the lab, it would look like Willie Gay. The hope for his rookie season was that he could overtake some of Damien Wilson’s snaps and add a level of athleticism this defense hasn’t had since the early 2010s.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, that didn’t happen his rookie year. Whether that was due to a shorter offseason, no preseason, or whatever, Gay only played 267 snaps in 2020. It’s a small sample size, making it difficult to analyze if he’s ready for a more prominent role in Year 2. We could judge his tape off of “Wins vs. Losses” if we want, but that wouldn’t be an effective exercise considering the small sample. Instead, let’s look at the baseline traits and skills Gay showed in Year 1 and how that could translate to a more prominent role. Enjoy!
Stack And Shed Skills
What makes Willie a unique athlete at linebacker is how well he takes on blocks. Generally, when you think of a 4.4 linebacker, that’s associated with a 230 lbs linebacker who struggles to deal with blocks. Willie is different in the sense that he’s 245 lbs with that speed. That speed paired with that density is scarce. Because of his length, physicality, and density, Willie flashed serious stack and shed skills. He’s not afraid to take on blocks, extend to lock, and rip through in the hole. For a rookie, Willie flashed the ability to deconstruct blocks already. Once his mental processing improves, there are flashes of him being an outstanding run defender as a linebacker.
Poor Play Action Reads
Willie was fine as a run defender in 2020, but where he struggled was in coverage. He struggled with different areas (we’ll get there), but one area he seemed to have struggled with was his play-action reads. Willie was playing slower in 2020, playing more reactant to plays. Teams would bait him in play-action, where he would trigger immediately after he read a zone step and then attack him over the middle. Granted, every Chiefs’ linebacker struggled with this in 2020, but Willie seemed to have immediate struggles there. However, that stuff can get cleaned up, and it’s a struggle for every linebacker in the league. Having more consistent mechanics and understanding plays/tendencies will help him improve there in the future.
Contact Strength
Like I mentioned earlier, Willie has rare ability with his size and speed. There aren’t many linebackers that run a 4.4 at 240+ lbs, but Willie has that ability. With that speed and size, his contact strength coming downhill is tremendous. When he gets going downhill to crash a hole, Willie has serious knockback power. His force of contact is some of the best I’ve seen in a linebacker. Willie has a long way to come as a blitzer - the nuances of snap timing and angles aren’t there yet - but once he gets there, he’s going to be devastating for running backs or even some offensive linemen in pass protection.
Closing Speed
Anyone that watched Willie Gay last season noticed his elite movement skills. Gay is in the upper echelon of athletes at linebacker, especially his explosive speed. When Gay is working downhill, very few linebackers can match his speed. His combination of explosiveness, short strides, and ability to close makes him a tremendous downhill linebacker. His speed brings hope that he could develop into an elite blitzer because he can turn at such a tight angle with his speed and body control. There aren’t many linebackers in the league who can move like Gay, and it gives the Chiefs an asset if he pieces it all together.
Sideline-to-Sideline Range
It’s difficult to explain this, but there’s a difference in speed between running to each sideline and running downhill. I feel a great example of this is Nick Bolton. Bolton’s speed in a linear path is excellent, and he’s explosive downhill. But when you ask him to flow and open his hips to the sideline and run, the results are more mixed. It comes with a level of agility and the ability to change speeds quickly. What makes Gay rare for a guy that size is his fluidity in his frame and his ability to open and quickly close to the sideline. He’s not a lumbering linebacker at 240 lbs; he has fluid hips and the ability to generate speed quickly.
Good Play Identification
Gay’s sample size is so limited that we don’t have a great idea of how well he’s picking up the playbook or reading plays. That being said, there were good moments of that in 2020. He was progressing through his triangle quicker as the year went by and read split zone well. He also was able to ID pullers well and get to the correct spot. There is a long way to fully ID plays well, but he made progress in 2020.
Coverage Uncomfortability
This offseason, The Athletic’s Nate Taylor reported that Gay was spending this offseason working on coverage techniques and footwork, particularly in zone coverage. That makes sense after his 2020 season, where the coverage part of his game wasn’t great. Most rookies struggle with coverage Year 1 (look at Patrick Queen). So this is perfectly normal for Gay.
The most significant issues now are that his explosiveness didn’t show in coverage. His movements weren’t particularly fluid, and it seemed he was playing slower mentally. Because he was playing a bit slower there, he tried to compensate with more movements and not let the game come to him more.
Again, this stuff takes reps to fix. It’s nothing alarming for his outlook in the future, and if he’s improved the technical side of his game, he’ll be perfectly okay. But that’s the spot I want to see Gay take the biggest step forward in 2021.
Coverage Athleticism
While Gay struggled with the footwork and technique side in coverage, he still had flashes in coverage. Particularly in the first Denver game, we saw Willie’s explosive ability to jump and break up two passes. He was able to leap and deflect passes most linebackers couldn’t reach. You see the speed and explosive ability and feel confident that he could become, at the very least, an average coverage linebacker. If his technical development took a big step this offseason, we could have a solid coverage linebacker in our hands in 2021.
Conclusion
Playing NFL linebacker is really hard. Outside of quarterback and maybe offensive line, I would say it’s the toughest transition for a rookie to excel at. So much of playing linebacker is quick reactions. Being able to read your triangle in an instant, figure out play direction and the way a guard is blocking, and being able to mirror a running back is insanely difficult. That doesn’t even factor in coverage, where you need to have an awareness for routes coming behind you and be aware of the quarterback at the same time. It’s tough for any rookie to play NFL linebacker, especially in a truncated offseason with not many reps.
That’s what makes Willie Gay tough to evaluate. He didn’t get those reps last offseason, and he didn’t play a ton in college. It’s like asking a kid to drive without driver’s ed or any type of permit practice. If he didn’t have those, making those quick, decisive reactions would be difficult.
That’s why the Chiefs limited his snaps. It’s easy to watch on broadcast and be like, “Willie Gay is clearly faster than everyone; just play him more.” I would love to have seen Willie more, but he would’ve made more mistakes and cost himself in certain areas. Willie needed a year to learn how to drive (or play football).
But that does make his evaluation difficult. It’s hard to judge his snaps on a scale because they were so limited, and he wasn’t asked to do a ton. Instead, we have to look at his film based on traits and where he could develop long-term. And with that in mind, his ceiling is insanely high. He’s shown a level of physicality with his length and density that you love, but also the speed to close quickly on running backs. He’s easily the most talented Chiefs linebacker.
I’m not expecting elite Willie Gay in 2021. That’s unfair for a guy that doesn’t have a lot of game reps. But I think he has every trait to be the starter next to Anthony Hitchens, and I want to see those growing pains. Every rep will help Willie, and if he wins that spot, I think we can feel a lot more excited about him in 2022 and beyond.