Willie
Gay.
Willie
Gay.
Mississippi State· 6'1"· 243 lb· 4.46s 40
"A 4.46 linebacker with two Super Bowl-caliber traits in range and coverage, whose 31-game college file and a junior season lost to team discipline forced teams to draft the athlete instead of the résumé."Pre-draft read
Gay is a movement linebacker who plays the game at a different speed than the people around him. He triggers downhill the instant he reads run, closes ground in two strides, and finishes with real pop as a tackler. In pursuit he chases plays down from the back side and turns what should be a modest gain into a stop near the line of scrimmage.
The athletic ceiling is the story. He carries tight ends and backs vertically in man coverage, ranges sideline to sideline in zone, and has the burst to be a designed blitzer off the edge or through an A gap. The processing is behind the traits: he reads late, gets caught on blocks he should have avoided, and plays with more speed than discipline, which shows up on misdirection and play-action.
Multiple front that plays heavy nickel and lets an athletic linebacker cover ground rather than take on blocks in a phone booth.
Year 1 sub-package coverage linebacker and core special teamer, with a ceiling as a three-down WILL who takes the tight end in man and blitzes on passing downs.
A two-gap front that asks the inside linebacker to take on pulling guards head-up and play downhill through traffic on early downs, where his block-shedding limitations get exposed.
He needs defensive linemen who keep him clean; when he plays behind a front that occupies blockers, the range plays up a full tier.
Willie Gay's Pass Coverage Skills
Coverage-only cutup, the clearest look at the trait that got him drafted in the second round.
Mississippi State Linebacker Willie Gay
Bulldogs cutup covering the 2018 breakout season with the run fits and blitz reps.
Willie Gay Jr. Combine Workout | Mississippi State Linebacker
Full combine workout: the 4.46 forty, 39.5-inch vertical and 7.08 three-cone that moved his board placement.
Gay was the top defensive recruit in Mississippi and stayed home in Starkville, where he was a role player as a true freshman before breaking out as a sophomore with 48 tackles, six tackles for loss, five sacks and two interceptions in 2018. He was the clear best athlete in the Mississippi State front seven and the kind of linebacker who ended drives by himself.
Then the tape stopped. A violation of team and academic policy cost him most of his junior season, and he played only five games in 2019, finishing with 28 tackles, four tackles for loss and a 52-yard interception return for a touchdown on his first snap against Kentucky. His college file closed at 31 games, 99 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, six sacks and three interceptions. It was an incomplete résumé for a player who was supposed to dominate the SEC as a junior.
The combine put the traits beyond argument: 4.46 in the forty, a 39.5-inch vertical, 136 inches in the broad jump and a 7.08 three-cone at 243 pounds. Evaluators were sorting a top-40 athlete with a top-100 body of work and real off-field questions. Kansas City took the athlete at the end of the second round and bet that Steve Spagnuolo's defense and a veteran room would fill in the rest.
- 01
Closing speed
Elite range for the position, with the acceleration to cut off outside runs from the far hash and erase throwing lanes that should have been open.
- 02
Man coverage ability
Fluid enough to carry tight ends and backs down the seam, a skill set that keeps him on the field for every snap in sub packages.
- 03
Blitz burst
Genuinely explosive as a pressure player, timing up the snap and turning the corner fast enough to produce five sacks as a sophomore.
- 04
Tackling force
Arrives with violence and finishes through the ball carrier, generating a punch on contact that shows up on both fumbles and stopped drives.
- 05
Special teams value
The speed and physicality translate immediately to coverage units, giving a team a real contributor while the defensive role is being built.
- 01
Diagnosis speed
Reads keys late and reacts to what he sees instead of anticipating it, which lets guards climb to him and stalls his best trait.
- 02
Block deconstruction
Gets absorbed when a lineman reaches him cleanly, lacking the hand technique to stack and shed at the second level.
- 03
Production résumé
Only 31 college games and one full season of meaningful snaps, leaving evaluators projecting from traits rather than sustained tape.
- 04
Availability questions
Team discipline and academic issues limited him to five games as a junior, a pattern that pushed him off some boards entirely.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.46sp50
- Vertical
- 39.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 136inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.08sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.30sp50
- Bench
- 21repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Mississippi State | 13 | 23 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 2018 | Mississippi State | 13 | 48 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | Mississippi State | 5 | 28 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Career | — | 31 | 99 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
Sports-Reference totals include bowl games and season sums match the career line exactly (99 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, six sacks, three interceptions in 31 games). The five-game 2019 season reflects a suspension for a violation of team and academic policy, not injury.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Fast, physical starter who makes explosive plays and gives some of them back with late reads and missed fits.
The version where the rare range and coverage ability turn into a Pro Bowl three-down linebacker who erases the middle of the field.
Athletic linebacker who looks the part and runs well but never processes fast enough to hold a starting job long term.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Kansas City eased him in and then handed him the job. Gay played all 16 games with eight starts as a rookie in 2020, finishing with 39 tackles and a sack, and started 11 of 12 games in 2021 with two interceptions. His best season came in 2022: 88 combined tackles, 2.5 sacks, eight passes defensed and a 47-yard interception return for a touchdown in 13 games, playing the do-everything linebacker role in Spagnuolo's defense. He followed that with 58 tackles and 15 starts in 2023. He won two Super Bowls in Kansas City, then left in free agency for New Orleans in 2024, where he made eight starts, and signed with Miami in 2025 as a rotational piece and core special teamer.
In hindsight the pick worked, with the caveats the evaluation predicted. Gay became a four-year starter on a championship defense, which is more than most picks at the end of the second round return, and the coverage range was exactly as advertised. What never fully arrived was the processing. He remained a linebacker who was best when the play was simple and in front of him, and once he left the structure and the pass rush that protected him in Kansas City, the production dropped sharply. Good value, real player, but the ceiling the athletic testing suggested never became consistent tape.
Data note: from San Francisco