{"id":830515,"date":"2026-03-24T05:22:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/830515\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T05:22:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:22:49","slug":"evaluating-akeem-davis-gaithers-fit-with-colts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/830515\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating Akeem Davis-Gaither’s fit with Colts"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 23, 2026, 2:48 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

Among the numerous additions that the\u00a0Indianapolis Colts<\/a>\u00a0have made in free agency, GM Chris Ballard\u00a0added a needed veteran presence at the linebacker position, signing Akeem Davis-Gaither.<\/p>\n

Davis-Gaither was a fourth-round pick by the Cincinnati Bengals, where he played his first five NFL seasons. Four of those years came with Lou Anarumo as his defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

“I’ve built up a great relationship with Lou from our time in Cincinnati,” Davis-Gaither said, via Colts.com<\/a>. “I have a relationship with him, I trust him, I trust his system, and I trust in his ability to call a good defense. It made it easy to want to be here and play under his play-calling.”<\/p>\n

For most of his career with the Bengals, Davis-Gaither took on more of a rotational role. However, as a free agent last offseason, he signed with Arizona, where he would go on to make 13 starts<\/a> and appear in 17 games.<\/p>\n

There, he had his most productive year in the NFL, which included recording 117 total tackles. In coverage, he allowed 10.9 yards per catch with one interception and two pass breakups,\u00a0according to PFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

When speaking with the Indianapolis media, Davis-Gaither mentioned how valuable that starting experience was, as was going through the preparation process each week as a known starter.<\/p>\n

To go along with his contributions on defense, Davis-Gaither has played a lot of special teams snaps in his career as well.<\/p>\n

With the Colts<\/a>, Davis-Gaither sits at the top of the linebacker depth chart, simply given his NFL experience. Jaylon Carlies, who has a little over 200 career defensive snaps, was the most experienced player on the roster at this position group before Davis-Gaither was signed.<\/p>\n

“The room is wide open,” Davis-Gaither said of the Colts’ linebacker room. “That’s one of the reasons that I’m here — to compete to start and be on the field. I’m just here to earn my spot on this team and do it that way.”<\/p>\n

His familiarity and comfort within Anarumo’s scheme should help Davis-Gaither hit the ground running. During his time with the Bengals, Davis-Giather filled various roles within Anarumo’s defense at the linebacker position.<\/p>\n

“I was interchangeable,” Davis-Gaither said of his previous role under Anarumo. “I played like seven or eight games at MIKE. I think five or six (games) at WILL.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 23, 2026, 2:48 p.m. ET Among the numerous additions that the\u00a0Indianapolis Colts\u00a0have made in free agency, GM…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,95882,95903,100486,95896,95888,95906,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-830515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-colts","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcolts","16":"tag-sstsncolts","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","19":"tag-tagjaylon-carlies","20":"tag-tagnational-sports","21":"tag-tagnfl","22":"tag-tagoverall-positive","23":"tag-tagsports-news","24":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116282484486213323","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}