When Chargers tight end Antonio Gates was suspended for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancing drug policy, his harshest critic was Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe. Gates thinks Sharpe’s criticism was an attempt by Sharpe to protect his own status among the league’s all-time great tight ends.
Sharpe said Gates’s PED use “calls into question everything that he’s ever accomplished.” Gates thinks Sharpe is trying to downgrade him because Gates is only 28 catches and 47 yards away from passing Sharpe for third place among all tight ends in NFL history. Gates said he and Sharpe have been friendly rivals in the past, but now Sharpe is trying to personally attack him as Gates closes in on surpassing his career accomplishments.
“We played against each other, so it wasn’t like he was a teammate of mine or we were the best of friends,” Gates said. “But we do know each other, and it was always competitive in terms of who was the better tight end, I do know that. And we joked about it. We laughed about it. So I guess if he can find a way to tarnish something I think he probably would.”
Gates, who returns from his four-game suspension this week, may be right that Sharpe wants to tarnish Gates’s legacy to maintain Sharpe’s own place on the all-time tight end hierarchy. But Sharpe is perfectly entitled to that opinion. When a player violates the PED policy, he has to understand that his reputation is going to take a hit.