Akeem
Davis-Gaither.
Akeem
Davis-Gaither.
Appalachian St.· 6'1"· 224 lb
"A 215-pound Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year with eighteen career pass breakups, drafted as a coverage linebacker who had to prove he could survive against guards on early downs."Pre-draft read
Davis-Gaither is a coverage linebacker who was built like a big safety, listed at 6-2 and 215 pounds in college. Appalachian State moved him everywhere: off the ball, over the slot, on the edge as a blitzer. He changes direction rarely well for the position, running with tight ends down the seam.
The speed shows up as range. He chases plays down from the back side, closes on screens and flats before they develop, and knocks passes down at the catch point, which is how a linebacker finished with eighteen career pass breakups. Against the run he is a violent hitter, voted the hardest hitter in his conference, but the weight is a problem when a guard reaches him. The signature is coverage: a defender who takes away the middle of the field.
A nickel-heavy defense that plays its base personnel under 30 percent of snaps and asks the weakside linebacker to match backs and tight ends in man coverage.
Year 1 sub-package coverage linebacker and core special-teams player, with a ceiling as a three-down starting WILL in a light, speed-based front.
A two-gap base defense that leaves linebackers unprotected against guards and asks them to take on lead blockers in the hole every snap.
Akeem Davis-Gaither | ILB | 2020 NFL Draft
Pre-draft cutup of the senior tape, heavy on coverage reps and back-side pursuit.
RB Keshawn Vaughn, Vanderbilt vs Akeem Davis-Gaither, Appalachian State
Head-to-head matchup against an SEC back who was also drafted in 2020.
2019 Sun Belt Football Defensive Player of the Year: Akeem Davis-Gaither
Conference-produced feature on the award-winning senior season.
Davis-Gaither spent five years in Boone and won constantly. He redshirted in 2015 after three appearances, played rotational and special-teams snaps in 2016 and 2017, then became a full-time starter for two seasons on teams that went a combined 54-12 with four straight conference titles and a 5-0 bowl record, part of only the fifth class in college football history to win five bowl games and four league championships.
The production arrived all at once. He posted 105 tackles, ten for loss and seven pass breakups as a junior, earning second-team All-Sun Belt, then exploded as a senior with 104 tackles, fourteen for loss, five sacks, nine pass breakups, an interception and a blocked field goal that ended a 34-31 win at North Carolina. He was Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year, a fourth-team Phil Steele All-American and a team captain. His career line was 55 games, 258 tackles, 28 for loss, eight sacks and eighteen passes defended.
The evaluation split on size. He was 215 pounds at a position where NFL teams want 235, and his Senior Bowl week was about proving he could take on blockers rather than run around them. Nobody doubted the coverage or the speed. Cincinnati opened the fourth round by taking exactly that: a nickel linebacker first, an every-down player maybe later.
- 01
Coverage at a premium
Eighteen career pass breakups for a linebacker, with the hips and speed to carry tight ends and backs vertically.
- 02
Sideline-to-sideline range
Chases plays down from the back side and arrives on perimeter screens before the blocks can set up.
- 03
Blitz productivity
Fourteen tackles for loss and five sacks as a senior, timing pressures from off the ball and from the slot.
- 04
Alignment versatility
Played off the ball, over the slot and on the edge in the same game, a natural fit for sub packages.
- 05
Winner with a captain profile
Five bowl wins, four conference titles, team captain and Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year as a senior.
- 01
Undersized for the position
Listed at 215 pounds, well below the NFL standard for an off-ball linebacker asked to play early downs.
- 02
Gets covered up by blockers
Cannot stack and shed guards climbing to the second level, which washes him out of interior runs.
- 03
Late-arriving production
Only two seasons as a full-time starter, with 49 total tackles across his first three years.
- 04
Sun Belt level of competition
Faced few NFL-caliber offensive linemen, leaving the run-fit questions unresolved on tape.
— — — positional median (p50)
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| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Appalachian State | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | Appalachian State | 13 | 16 | 1.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2017 | Appalachian State | 13 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2018 | Appalachian State | 13 | 105 | 1.5 | 0 | 7 | 2 |
| 2019 | Appalachian State | 13 | 104 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 0 |
| Career | — | 55 | 258 | 8 | 1 | 18 | 2 |
Sports-Reference season lines with bowl games included; the five seasons sum exactly to the 55-game, 258-tackle, 28-tackle-for-loss, eight-sack, eighteen-pass-defended career totals published by Appalachian State. The school credits him with 14.5 tackles for loss in 2019, a half-stop more than the conference-verified figure used here. He also blocked a field goal to end a 34-31 win at North Carolina in 2019.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A light, fast linebacker who lives on special teams and sub packages while occasionally starting.
The ceiling: an undersized speed linebacker whose coverage range turns him into a full-time Pro Bowl starter.
A rotational linebacker whose lack of size keeps him off the field on early downs for good.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cincinnati used him exactly as drafted, then waited. Davis-Gaither played all sixteen games as a rookie in 2020 with two starts and 31 tackles, mostly as a sub-package defender and core special-teams player. He missed time in 2021 and stayed in a rotational role through the Bengals Super Bowl run, then logged 46 tackles in 2022 and just seventeen in 2023 as Cincinnati leaned on other linebackers. Four years in, he was a coverage specialist and special-teams regular, nothing more.
Then the snaps came. Re-signed in 2024, he started seven games and posted 82 tackles with an interception; Arizona signed him in free agency in 2025 and he started thirteen games, finishing with 117 tackles, five passes defensed, an interception, a forced fumble and eighteen special-teams stops. Indianapolis signed him in March 2026 and he opened the season starting. Through seven seasons: 90 games, 26 starts, 343 tackles and sixteen passes defensed. In hindsight the size concerns were real and cost him four years of early-down work, but the coverage ability kept him employed until the league finally trusted him as a starter.