A pair of former Pittsburgh Steelers players were named to the Washington Commanders’ coaching staff as William Gay and Darnell Stapleton are joining head coach Dan Quinn’s staff as their assistant DB coach and assistant OL coach respectively, per a post by ESPN’s Commanders reporter John Keim on X.
Gay played cornerback for the Steelers from 2007 to 2017 with a one-year break in 2012 when he briefly spent time with the Arizona Cardinals. He also was briefly with the New York Giants in 2018, but never appeared in a game. He was a part of the Steelers’ Super Bowl XLIII team that defeated the Cardinals to bring a sixth Lombardi Trophy to Pittsburgh.
He spent time on the Steelers’ staff as a coaching intern in 2019 to break onto the coaching scene and was with Missouri State as its DB coach in 2020. Most recently, he was an analyst for the Texas Longhorns under head coach Steve Sarkisian. This will be his first time coaching in the NFL outside of the internship with the Steelers. With the Steelers losing their assistant DB coach Gerald Alexander to the Las Vegas Raiders, Gay was a name that some floated to fill that role.
Another former Steelers CB, Deshea Townsend, just became the defensive pass-game coordinator with the Detroit Lions.
Along with Gay, Stapleton was hired to Washington’s staff as an assistant OL coach. He made the Steelers in 2007 as an undrafted free agent and stuck with the team for three seasons before playing in the UFL with the Florida Tuskers in 2010. After one year in the UFL, he spent a couple weeks on the New England Patriots’ roster in the offseason before being waived.
He has held multiple coaching roles in different football leagues since finishing his playing career. He was the head coach of the New York Sharks, a professional women’s football team, for one season before coaching the offensive line at a high school for a season. He then spent time with various colleges including Rutgers, Bucknell, Sam Houston State, Louisiana, and Florida before heading back to the NFL with the Commanders.
