{"id":85377,"date":"2020-04-21T14:30:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T18:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=85377"},"modified":"2020-04-15T11:15:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:15:23","slug":"akeem-davis-gaither-2020-nfl-draft-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/04\/21\/akeem-davis-gaither-2020-nfl-draft-profile\/","title":{"rendered":"Akeem Davis-Gaither 2020 NFL Draft Profile"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Akeem Davis-Gaither Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Position: <\/strong>Linebacker<br \/>\n<strong>Height: <\/strong>6\u2019-1\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>Weight: <\/strong>224 pounds<br \/>\n<strong>School: <\/strong>Appalachian State<\/p>\n<p><strong>NFL Combine Performance Data<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bench Press<\/strong>: 21 reps<\/p>\n<h2>Akeem Davis-Gaither 2020 NFL Draft Profile<\/h2>\n<p>After five years with the Appalachian State Mountaineers, linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither is looking to take his game to the professional level. The redshirt senior is coming off arguably the best season of his young career. Playing in 886 snaps, Davis-Gaither recorded 67 tackles, 28 assists, and 15 missed tackles.<\/p>\n<p>Davis-Gaither initially entered the college football landscape as a two-star recruit. Despite the relatively low ranking, he still managed to draw some interest from Boston College, Charlotte, and Appalachian State. He eventually chose App State and spent the early portion of his career primarily riding the bench. He finally earned a starting job in 2018 and had a strong campaign, recording 59 tackles, 24 assists, and 18 missed tackles on 819 snaps.<\/p>\n<h3>Strengths<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Smooth, free-flowing movement and rarely wastes a step getting to his target;<\/li>\n<li>Effective blitzer with strength far greater than his size would indicate;<\/li>\n<li>Instinctual player with a high football IQ;<\/li>\n<li>Lateral movement skills to slip past offensive linemen;<\/li>\n<li>Doesn\u2019t let his size limit him and plays like a 6\u2019-4\u201d, 250-pound linebacker;<\/li>\n<li>Good in pursuit \u2013 can chase down ball carrier from across the field.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Weaknesses<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Struggles to consistently wrap up ball carrier;<\/li>\n<li>Small for the position and will need to add muscle;<\/li>\n<li>Aggressive tendencies can lead to over pursuing the play;<\/li>\n<li>Nothing special in coverage;<\/li>\n<li>Consistently tries to win with agility more than strength \u2013 this could be an issue defending the run;<\/li>\n<li>Won\u2019t work out unless he lands with a creative coach that will use him in a multitude of ways.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>NFL Comparison: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BullRi00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Riley Bullough<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Teams With Need at Position: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/panthers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Carolina Panthers<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/bengals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Cincinnati Bengals<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/lions\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Detroit Lions<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/packers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Green Bay Packers<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/jaguars\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jacksonville Jaguars<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/rams\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Los Angeles Rams<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/eagles\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Philadelphia Eagles<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/titans\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Tennessee Titans<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/redskins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Washington Redskins<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Projection: <\/strong>4<sup>th<\/sup> Round<\/p>\n<h3>Bottom Line on Akeem Davis-Gaither<\/h3>\n<p>Akeem Davis-Gaither would have a bright NFL future if he was just a little bigger. The Appalachian State product moves as smoothly as any linebacker in this class, isn\u2019t afraid to get physical, and should be effective as a blitzer. He\u2019s a smart player that tends to know where the ball is going and can get to the ball carrier quickly. This anticipation, combined with his football IQ, allows him to chase down plays from the opposite side of the field. Even though he is small, he plays bigger than his size and isn\u2019t afraid to make plays in the box.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, outplaying your size in college and the NFL are two different things. Davis-Gaither struggled with missed tackles in college, and that will probably only get worse in the NFL. No matter how sound the fundamentals, it\u2019s hard to ask a 6\u2019-1\u201d, 224-pound linebacker to consistently win against NFL offensive linemen and bring down NFL running backs. He\u2019s strong, but not disproportionately strong, so he is going to struggle in this regard. There is definitely an NFL player in here, and the right coaching staff should be able to effectively utilize him situationally. However, unless he\u2019s an extreme outlier, he probably won\u2019t be able to ever start with his current build.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After five years at Appalachian State, linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither is taking his talents to the pros in the 2020 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":85379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[1647],"tags":[5273,6076,61,40],"class_list":["post-85377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-draft","tag-2020-nfl-draft","tag-akeem-davis-gaither","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85377","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=85377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}