KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Willie Gay Jr. has served his four-game suspension, and Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid expects the third-year linebacker to return before practice resumes Wednesday.
“I haven’t gotten with (General Manager) Brett (Veach) on that, but I presume that’s what will take place,” Reid said when asked if he expected Gay to return Monday.
That’s not the only good news for the Chiefs, who are also likely to have rookie cornerback Trent McDuffie back for Sunday’s trip to San Francisco.
“If he can go this week, we’ll get him in there playing,” Reid said. “We just want to see how he does in there during the week of practice and see how it feels. But if he can get back in, we’ll let him play.”
McDuffie suffered a hamstring injury in his NFL debut Sept. 11 at Arizona and has missed five games. He was designated to return from injured reserve last week and returned to practice, but remained inactive in Sunday’s loss to Buffalo.
Reid stopped short of definitively saying McDuffie would be back.
“The idea last week was to test it out and see where it’s at,” Reid said. “We’ll do the same thing this week. We’re not going to put him in a bad situation where he’s not comfortable. ... As long as he feels good this week coming up, then we’ll give him a chance to play. If not, then we’ll back off it.”
But there’s no doubt the Chiefs gleefully will welcome back Gay.
“Adding Willie back in there is another good athlete into that mix, and that never hurts, so we’re looking forward to getting him back in there,” Reid said.
During Gay’s absence, Kansas City went 2-2 with Darius Harris and rookie Leo Chenal getting most of Gay’s reps at linebacker.
Harris played a limited role in the win at Tampa Bay, playing only one-third of the defensive snaps, but he was on the field for at least 69% of the defensive snaps against Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Buffalo.
He had a career-high 13 tackles at the Colts and added 10 more against the Raiders.
Harris, who had six tackles against the Bills, also had a sack, three tackles for a loss, a pass defended and a fumble recovery in Gay’s stead. He was productive enough that it’s unlikely Harris will disappear completely from the defense.
“It will be great to get Willie back in the mix on things, and then we’ll just see,” Reid said. “Spags uses a lot of different personnel groups. To have one more good football player in there sure will help, too.”
