{"id":162706,"date":"2024-03-12T18:56:52","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T22:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=162706"},"modified":"2024-03-12T18:56:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T22:56:52","slug":"willie-gay-signs-contract-new-orleans-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/03\/12\/willie-gay-signs-contract-new-orleans-saints\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-Time Super Bowl Champion Signs Contract With New Orleans Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four-year veteran linebacker Willie Gay signed a new contract with the New Orleans Saints. Gay, a two-time Super Bowl champion, spent the entirety of his career with the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Saints?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Saints<\/a> have agreed to terms with former <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Chiefs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Chiefs<\/a> LB Willie Gay to a one-year deal worth a max of $5 million, source says.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeGarafolo\/status\/1767681090133582270?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 12, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Willie Gay, Saints, Agree to Contract<\/h2>\n<p>2023 marked yet another season of solid, reliable play from Willie Gay. Appearing in 16 games while making 15 starts for one of the NFL&#8217;s best defenses, the Mississippi State product finished the final year of his contract with one sack, one interception, 58 tackles, four tackles-for-loss, and three quarterback hits. After a relatively shaky regular season, the Chiefs found their form in the playoffs and ended up hoisting their second Lombardi Trophy in as many seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Willie Gay originally entered the league as a second-round pick in the 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024-nfl-draft-profiles\/\" target=\"_self\">NFL Draft<\/a>. Selected by the Kansas City Chiefs, the Mississippi State product began his career as a rotational player on the defense. Appearing in all 16 games while making eight starts, Gay finished his inaugural season with 39 tackles, three tackles-for-loss, one quarterback hit, and one sack. The Chiefs made it all the way to the Super Bowl but ultimately fell short against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2021\/07\/16\/2020-tom-brady-greatest-career-accomplishment\/\" target=\"_self\">Tom Brady&#8217;s Buccaneers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Gay built upon his promising rookie season the earn a full-time starting job in 2021. Starting in 11 of the 12 games in which he appeared, the linebacker finished the season with two interceptions, 0.5 sacks, 48 tackles, one tackle-for-loss, and one quarterback hit. Kansas City went on another deep playoff run, going to the AFC Championship Game before falling to the Cincinnati Bengals.<\/p>\n<p>After two close calls, Willie Gay finally won his first Super Bowl in the third year of his contract. Starting and appearing in 13 games, the former second-round pick finished the year with one interception, one touchdown, 2.5 sacks, 88 tackles, nine tackles-for-loss, and four quarterback hits. Despite missing four games to injury, the tackles, sacks, tackles-for-loss, and quarterback hits were career highs.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Mark J. Rebilas &#8211; USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four-year veteran linebacker Willie Gay has signed a new contract. The Mississippi State product spent 2023 with the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":162708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,16],"tags":[7811,246,7659,6422],"class_list":["post-162706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-chiefs","tag-chiefs-featured","tag-nfl-news","tag-saints-featured","tag-willie-gay"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}