Well he certainly isn't going to win the starting job until the pads come on at the earliest

Exit the ship??

I don’t think they are going to have him wait as long we think.

Willie Gay started playing significant snaps in games at the end of October and he didn’t have much experience starting in college and also had to deal with a pandemic forcing him to miss in person practice his first OTA’s.

Nick Bolton was drafted in per bc he was very experienced and smart. He’s not calling the defense so there’s not a ton of responsibility there and he is here like a normal offseason.

JMO but I think we see him start playing at least 50% of the snaps by early to mid October

It’s a given Bolton will take a while to get more snaps, I’m just hopeful that by the end of the season we don’t have to see another snap played by Niemann barring injury.

I’m more interested early on in seeing if Gay can hit the ground running early on in the season. I don’t think he really showed the growth through last year I had hoped for, he still seemed lost at times late in the year, and the injury prior to the playoffs certainly didn’t help. This off-season is going to be huge for his future here.

I’ll continue to harp on the sentiment that with the cap constraints we’ll usually be under year to year our high draft picks need to heavily contribute and/or become starters sooner rather than later. Thornhill was clearly on that path prior to his injury. Hardman contributed heavily early on but has settled more into a gadget/role player type since then. I’m hopeful Gay and eventually Bolton can have relatively quick progression, waiting for year 3 or 4 for high draft picks to hit their stride isn’t sustainable in my opinion.

Clyde, Danna, and Sneed all had an immediate impact last year. Nnadi did as well his rookie year. Hell, Fenton did to an extent too.

Humphrey is already lining up as the starting C.

Not every draft pick is going to contribute immediately. The only issue here is that you’re focusing on the ones that don’t, and ignoring the ones that do.

Our last 2 draft have been fantastic, and if this one is anything like last years or how it looks on paper, it will absolutely be “sustainable”.

IIRC Spags was making similar comments about Sneed going into last season. He turned out OK.

*****The Nick Bolton Thread*****
 

Sounds like a motivational quote to get Bolton in the right frame of mind.

Bolton needs to be one of the ones who do. He has 2 years as the leader of a defense in the SEC. He’s also very smart per the scouting reports/Chiefs assessment.

It was understandable that Willie Gay took time. He didn’t start much in college, wasnt the smartest player, wasn’t the leader of the defense and got screwed by the pandemic forcing him to miss valuable practice time.

I don’t think it will be long before Bolton gets significant snaps

Absolutely, two different players with very different experience levels coming into the bigs

Saw this interesting nugget on Willie Gay today:

So this guy had to deal with no OTA’s, not starting many games or leading his defense in college and only looking at his playbook starting in camp....and he played about 25% of the snaps in week 4 and then about 50% in week 7.

I don’t buy this “they’re gonna bring Bolton along slowly” stuff. Compared to Willie he’s in a way better situation this year. I think he gets 50+% of the snaps by early October at the latest

I think Bolton gets 50% of the week 1 snaps. Niemann is so awful that you could literally put a blind reerun out there and not be that much worse at LB.

What about a blind AND deaf one?

Hell, you could put a dead reerun out there and not notice much difference.

Jesus Christmas.

Gay and Bolton are going to be demons in the middle of the field of our defense.

Our front 7 is going to be fun to watch in the near future.