Kansas City Chiefs rookie LB Willie Gay Jr. suffered an ankle sprain early on during the Week 17 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. Unfortunately, according to a new report, it’s the dreaded high-ankle sprain. Those types of sprains have a longer recovery compared to a low-ankle sprain.
According to Kansas City Star beat writer Sam McDowell, Gay has been diagnosed with a high ankle sprain. That gives him a recovery timeline of anywhere from 2-4 weeks according to McDowell. This is the same injury that Chiefs rookie RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire is dealing with, but he’s got a week on Gay in terms of his recovery. He was also considered to be “ahead of schedule.”
Chiefs rookie linebacker Willie Gay has been diagnosed with a high ankle sprain, a source tells me. He's looking at a 2-4 week recovery.
— Sam McDowell (@SamMcDowell11) January 4, 2021
This timeline means that the earliest that Gay would be able to return to practice and play would be the AFC Championship Game. That’d, of course, mean that he’s able to recover as quickly as possible. It’s also possible that Gay misses out on the playoffs entirely if the Chiefs don’t make it to Super Bowl LV.
While Gay was slated to see perhaps his most snaps of the season in Week 17, the coaching staff still hasn’t really committed to using him for a bulk of the snaps on defense. That remained true even when Damien Wilson was sidelined with a knee injury. Gay really only saw action in the Chiefs’ base 4-3 personnel against teams that run a lot of 21 and 22 personnel looks. Otherwise, he was looking at between 10-20 snaps on average.
We’ll likely hear more about Gay’s injury status and timeline when Reid addresses the media ahead of practice for the divisional round of the playoffs. It’s worth keeping an eye on as he remains their most athletic player at the linebacker position.
