Originally Posted by staylor26:
He’s going to be a beast by the end of the season.
Athleticism will eventually show itself once technique is worked out.
But one thing you really cannot teach is aggression at the point of attack. Darron Lee demonstrated it in camp and as soon as the lights came on went back to shirking responsibility and avoiding blockers.
Meanwhile Gay:
Dude is more than willing to power downhill and attack at the point of contact to keep plays from developing while his teammates take out the trash around him.
That will be ENORMOUS as this defense continues to develop an identity and focus on a team concept. If he can be trusted in run situations to simply ensure that he's occupying a man or two and making things more difficult for the runner, he'll be an asset regardless of the box score.
And in time his coverage technique will round into form and we'll see that athleticism flash. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Athleticism will eventually show itself once technique is worked out.
But one thing you really cannot teach is aggression at the point of attack. Darron Lee demonstrated it in camp and as soon as the lights came on went back to shirking responsibility and avoiding blockers.
Meanwhile Gay:
Dude is more than willing to power downhill and attack at the point of contact to keep plays from developing while his teammates take out the trash around him.
That will be ENORMOUS as this defense continues to develop an identity and focus on a team concept. If he can be trusted in run situations to simply ensure that he's occupying a man or two and making things more difficult for the runner, he'll be an asset regardless of the box score.
And in time his coverage technique will round into form and we'll see that athleticism flash.
These 2 plays are a great example of why he should be playing over Ben. Ben doesn't attack blockers at all, and lets himself get blocked. [Reply]
Originally Posted by seaofred:
These 2 plays are a great example of why he should be playing over Ben. Ben doesn't attack blockers at all, and lets himself get blocked.
As Gay continues to develop and get more snaps, Ben will go back to being able to simply focus on special teams, which is the only role he should be playing on this team. That said, Reid/Spags are doing the right thing here by letting Gay slowly take on more each and every week. We're in a position of luxury where the pieces around Niemann generally make up for his shortcomings. By November, the D is going to be a major force to deal with and our opponents are going to be flat out fucked, for lack of a better word. [Reply]
Gonna bump a previous post in this thread to make my point a bit:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Athleticism will eventually show itself once technique is worked out.
But one thing you really cannot teach is aggression at the point of attack. Darron Lee demonstrated it in camp and as soon as the lights came on went back to shirking responsibility and avoiding blockers.
Meanwhile Gay:
Dude is more than willing to power downhill and attack at the point of contact to keep plays from developing while his teammates take out the trash around him.
That will be ENORMOUS as this defense continues to develop an identity and focus on a team concept. If he can be trusted in run situations to simply ensure that he's occupying a man or two and making things more difficult for the runner, he'll be an asset regardless of the box score.
And in time his coverage technique will round into form and we'll see that athleticism flash.
If you spend so much time telling Willie Gay that he needs to come in under control and make sure he never gets put in the spin cycle, you're gonna lose this kind of reckless abandon, IMO. You can't have a thought in your head to blow a play apart like that other than "See run fit, kill run fit - hope ballcarrier is there when I'm done" He's not looking around the G to find the ballcarrier. He's not going Derrick Johnson out there and looking to knife the gap. He's looking to find a motherfucker and hit him. He has his eyes on his target from the moment the ball is snapped and smokes him. Then after he stops the guy, he finds someone else and suddenly he's wrecked an entire gap precisely BECAUSE he's just playing downhill.
Let the guy play at 100 mph - it's what makes him so appealing and what makes him so damn nasty to play against.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Gonna bump a previous post in this thread to make my point a bit:
If you spend so much time telling Willie Gay that he needs to come in under control and make sure he never gets put in the spin cycle, you're gonna lose this kind of reckless abandon, IMO. You can't have a thought in your head to blow a play apart like that other than "See run fit, kill run fit - hope ballcarrier is there when I'm done"
Let the guy play at 100 mph - it's what makes him so appealing and what makes him so damn nasty to play against.
Great points. Literally every offensive player is going to know where he is on the field at all times. That's a huge thing. [Reply]
I wasn't one of the people saying Gay was going to need time. I'm very thankful for the smart posters who knew this and repeated it, because it allowed me to not worry when he wasn't starting.
Originally Posted by saphojunkie:
I wasn't one of the people saying Gay was going to need time. I'm very thankful for the smart posters who knew this and repeated it, because it allowed me to not worry when he wasn't starting.
Every time he's on the field he absolutely looks like the athletic freak he's touted as. He's easy to spot when he's on the field. He's the big, rocked up, fast dude playing LB. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Detoxing:
Every time he's on the field he absolutely looks like the athletic freak he's touted as. He's easy to spot when he's on the field. He's the big, rocked up, fast dude playing LB.
Guy looks awfully unpleasant to play against.
If you can't get an angle on him, he's gonna blast you. And for the most part he appears to be playing with good leverage.
He's not a guy you're gonna throw around out there unless you out-technician him. If you're not completely focused, you're gonna feel that rep. [Reply]
Those 2 plays are the top 2 plays made by a LB for the Chiefs on a run this year. All I've seen the starters do is either stand back and not attack or if they do attack they don't actively engage the blocker and take themselves out of the play/make a tackle 7 yards down the field cuz they tried to run around the blocker.
Those 2 plays are the perfect example of how a LB should play and Gay Jr is the only one of our LBs that could make those plays. [Reply]
