{"id":299473,"date":"2026-06-07T23:10:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/299473\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T23:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:10:24","slug":"how-dolphins-lb-willie-gay-jr-coped-with-disappointing-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/299473\/","title":{"rendered":"How Dolphins LB Willie Gay Jr. coped with disappointing 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody knows about the scream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beginning in training camp, it became a mainstay at Miami Dolphins\u2019 practices, so much so that the franchise\u2019s various social media accounts were littered with clips of the exclamation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s far less known, however, is what the 2025 season did to the originator of said scream, one Willie Gay Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t easy,\u201d the linebacker said Thursday. \u201cI got my why\u2019s. Just hanging in there. Do what I do and trust the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because last year was a bit disappointing. Whether Gay, who signed a one-year deal with the Dolphins ahead of the 2025 season, was initially lured to Miami with the promise of playing time was unclear. What\u2019s abundantly apparent, however, was that Gay barely received any snaps that year, something that puzzled fans and media members alike considering his stellar training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just brings great energy,\u201d linebacker Tyrel Dodson said in August 2025. \u201cHis aura is crazy, as the young guys say these days. But Willie, I\u2019ve been knowing Willie for about five years now. Just going back and having respect for each other being in the AFC East, the AFC when he was in Kansas City, and I was in Buffalo, but Willie is a hell of a guy. He not only brings on the field; he brings off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

The playing time, however, never came. Despite having registered 57 starts across his six-year career, Gay only had two in 2025. That number was the lowest since the Kansas City Chiefs selected him in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to find a way to get Willie on the field and I told him that the next day,\u201d former Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said in early September. \u201cThere was a plan certainly to get him in the game; plans change. There was some chaos there for a little bit, but I need to get him. He\u2019s impactful. He\u2019s earned the right to get on the field, so I\u2019ve got to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the career lows didn\u2019t stop there. He also did so in several different categories including snap percentage (12), total tackles (20) and pass deflections (two).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that when asked what will make 2026 season a success, Gay kept it simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to play football,\u201d Gay said. \u201cI want to get on the field. I\u2019m not going lie to you. I know what I can bring to the able, so I want to be on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Dolphins underwent a lot of changes in offseason, a few remnants of the previous staff \u2013 specifically run game coordinator Joe Barry \u2013 gave Gay faith that 2026 will be different<\/a> from the previous year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe role thing definitely got me,\u201d Gay said, also listing the continuity of players like Jordyn Brooks, Dodson and Jackson Woodard that helped make the decision easier. \u201cFor him to remain on staff \u2014 and he called me during free agency \u2013 that played a big role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course no. one knows what the future holds. The sam linebacker position, Gay\u2019s favorite, remains up for grabs. Sure, he will have competition \u2014 namely a pair of rookies in Trey Moore and Kyle Louis, the latter of whom could be the steal of the draft \u2014 yet his veteran status could help him land a starting role.<\/p>\n

That experience could bode well for a linebacker core that already includes an All-Pro in Brooks. Gay was a starter on the Kansas City Chiefs team that won back-to-back Super Bowls in 2022 and 2023. If he can find his 2022 form<\/a>, a season in which he posted 88 tackles, 2.5 sacks and a pick-six, Gay could potentially carve out a role in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

C. Isaiah Smalls II<\/a><\/p>\n

Miami Herald<\/p>\n

C. Isaiah Smalls II is a sports and culture writer who covers the Miami Dolphins. In his previous capacity at the Miami Herald, he was the race and culture reporter who created The 44 Percent, a newsletter dedicated to the Black men who voted to incorporate the city of Miami. A graduate of both Morehouse College and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Smalls previously worked for ESPN\u2019s Andscape.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everybody knows about the scream. Beginning in training camp, it became a mainstay at Miami Dolphins\u2019 practices, so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-299473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}