2020 NFL Draft: Willie Gay Jr. scouting report

Controversy

On NFL.com, there is a prospect grade attached to every player available in the 2020 NFL Draft. The scale of this grading system goes from “the perfect prospect” at the top to a “Chance to be in a training camp” at the bottom. How did they grade Gay, a player who ran the second-fastest 40-yard dash for a linebacker?

“Chance to make the end of roster or practice squad”. Which is in the bottom third of grades a prospect can be awarded. How is this possible?

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1233920474452758528

A lot of this might have to do with Gay’s so-called “off-field issues” that have been brought up in recent weeks. While researching Gay for this article, it became clear that these issues stem from three separate incidents that happened at Mississippi State in the last two seasons.

There could be other issues not currently disseminated to the public that are influencing general managers and football scouts about Gay. NFL teams regularly hire private detectives and do a thorough sweep of a player’s private life for red-flags.

For Gay, it seems implausible the so-called issues publicly available are making teams hesitant to draft him when weighed against the immense amount of talent he shows on tape. For the purposes of this scouting report, we will report the so-called issues that are publicly known.

The first off-field issue revolves around an eight-game suspension Gay suffered in 2019. It is widely believed this suspension is in connection to a cheating scandal that saw the NCAA suspend 10 football players from the Mississippi State Bulldogs, along with severe sanctions for the school.

The cheating involved a tutor for the athletic department that supposedly completed academic assignments and chemistry tests for players on the team. Mississippi State self-reported these infractions to the NCAA when they came to light, incurring sanctions, a loss of scholarships for the school’s football program, show-cause restrictions, along with an eight-game suspension for the players involved.

Gay and his compatriots were not named outright as the athletes involved, as this would violate federal law on a student’s right to privacy. However he and nine other players were benched for eight games in 2019 for “violating team rules”, so it isn’t hard to determine who was involved.

The second issue stems from an incident leading up to last season’s Music City Bowl, where Mississippi State played against the Louisville Cardinals. The week before the Bowl game, Mississippi State quarterback Garrett Shrader broke an orbital bone during an altercation with a teammate and had to miss the game. That teammate was allegedly our linebacker Gay.

The third and last issue revolves around Gay being ejected from the Egg Bowl in 2018. A fight broke out while Mississippi State was playing Ole Miss, their biggest rival. Gay was ejected after incurring two separate “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalties.

This situation however involves a little nuance, as every player during that game received an “unsportsmanlike conduct” following a brawl that saw the benches from both teams hit the field. During the fight, Gay was relatively reserved and did not instigate or continue the fight. But since he had already received a similar penalty, he and several other players were ejected from the game.

The Egg Bowl is a tradition in Mississippi, where the two biggest schools in the state play against each other. The stakes in this game are more than just bragging rights and pride. These two schools recruit heavily from the same areas and a recent win in the Egg Bowl can be what it takes to convince a high school recruit.

Allowing himself to be ejected from the biggest game of the season, it’s understandable why NFL general managers are concerned about drafting Gay. But recent reports about Gay will simply say “He has a history of ejections…” and not add any more details, obfuscating the nature of the events.

The ejection (along with the other issues listed in this article) may indicate to NFL teams that Gay has poor decision-making off the field. This could lead to general managers being apprehensive to use serious team resources during the 2020 NFL Draft to bring him to their team. Even with his impressive background, some NFL teams will avoid at all costs bringing on a player even perceived to be divisive.