Sterling Sharpe could have been the GOAT — he steps into HOF despite a short career

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When thinking about Sterling Sharpe, one of the first people that comes to LeRoy Butler’s mind is the legendary bodybuilder Lee Haney.

“Intimidation,” Butler, the Hall of Fame Packers safety, says of Sharpe. “When he’d work out, he’d work out by the window, so when you go past the window, you would see him. Everybody else got on Packer-issued shirts and shorts. He had this whole Lee Haney outfit. I’m curling like 20-pound weights, and he’s curling 100-pound weights.”

Butler once asked Sharpe why.

Sharpe told him it was “because Jerry Rice, Cris Carter, they don’t look like this. (It’s) to let y’all know, ‘I’m the man.’”

On Saturday, Sharpe will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite playing just seven seasons in the NFL. Only 10 players enshrined spent less time playing professional football than the former Packers wide receiver, whose career was cut short by a neck injury suffered in 1994.

Sharpe made the Pro Bowl in five of his seven NFL seasons. (Scott Halleran / Allsport / Getty Images)

Sharpe has waited a quarter-century since he first became eligible for the Hall of Fame to receive his gold jacket. Sharpe was not your prototypical 6-foot-4 X receiver, but rather a 6-foot bulldog. His career played out much like his build: Short, but exceedingly impressive. To those who watched him, the premature end to his career prolonged a day that would have otherwise come long ago.

“If he hadn’t gotten hurt, he would’ve been a first-ballot Hall of Fame (selection),” says Mike Holmgren, the Packers’ head coach for Sharpe’s last three seasons. “That’s the only explanation I could give. I had the privilege of coaching Jerry Rice and being around great receivers, and Sterling’s right up there with those guys. He was special.”

Butler, a teammate of Sharpe’s for five seasons, took his proclamation a step further.

“I tell people all the time, if he didn’t get hurt, he’d be the G.O.A.T.,” Butler said. “The Jerry Rice discussion wouldn’t even be there. Sterling would be the G.O.A.T.”

Statistically, Butler’s claim has merit. Sharpe played seven seasons, all with the Packers, after Green Bay drafted him seventh overall in 1988. He made the Pro Bowl five times, All-Pro First Team three times, led the NFL in catches three times, topped the league in touchdown catches twice and ranked first in receiving yards once. During those seven years, Sharpe’s 595 receptions ranked second in the NFL — 25 fewer than Rice, already an established Pro Bowler when Sharpe was a rookie. Sharpe’s 65 touchdown catches were second (behind Rice’s 91), and his 8,134 receiving yards third (behind Rice and Henry Ellard).

Brett Favre stepped in as his quarterback in 1992, and the pair set the NFL ablaze. Only five wide receivers since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger have won the triple crown (leading the league in receptions, receiving yards and touchdown catches); Sharpe achieved the feat in his first year with Favre and Holmgren. Over three seasons with Favre, which would be Sharpe’s last in the NFL, he had a league-leading 314 catches (20 more than Rice) and 42 TD catches (four more than Rice), and his 3,854 yards ranked third behind Rice (4,203) and Michael Irvin (3,967).

Sharpe suffered a neck injury in the second-to-last game of the 1994 regular season. He played just one more career game. (R.S. Bigelow / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via Imagn Images)

Butler says Sharpe knew how to separate himself before the whistle even blew. He said Sharpe would roll down his socks so opponents would see how jacked his calves were.

“And the reason you gon’ know I pulled ‘em up is you gon’ see those white and green socks going past everybody,” Butler recalled Sharpe saying.

What Sharpe lacked in height and speed, he made up for in build and fearlessness.

“He was so much more physically fit than the other guys,” Holmgren said. “Receivers are tall and lanky a lot of times. He was built. He was strong. He ran routes, he was smart, yards after the catch, he had good speed to go deep, he had everything you wanted.”

Holmgren recalled playing the Raiders, a team known for their hard-nosed style, and a cornerback lined up across from Sharpe in press-man coverage near the Packers’ sideline.

“Sterling was not like a lot of receivers,” Holmgren said. “He came straight out at the guy, hit him, just blasted him, knocked him into the sideline where I was standing, and then ran his route. We threw the ball to him. I was going, ‘Oh, man, I don’t see that happen too often.’”

Sharpe thought defensive backs would play scared if they saw someone built like him charging toward them.

“He already had you in the head thinking that I’m bigger than you, stronger than you, and I look better than you,” Butler said.

He didn’t last long enough to lift the Lombardi Trophy with his coach and quarterback, but Sharpe had three touchdowns — including the game-winner with 55 seconds left — in a 1993 NFC wild-card win in Detroit. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Imagn Images)

Sharpe didn’t miss a game in seven years before his neck injury, which he suffered in the penultimate game of the 1994 season, against the Falcons, while blocking. He even played in the regular-season finale against the Buccaneers, catching nine passes for 132 yards and three touchdowns, but he re-injured his neck ahead of the playoffs. Testing revealed two loose vertebrae, an injury that ended Sharpe’s career before age 30, and as the Packers were ascending with Favre and Holmgren. He missed out on a Packers Super Bowl title, which came two seasons later, and perhaps myriad individual feats that might have placed him in the same breath as Rice and, at the very least, in the Hall of Fame more than two decades ago.

Sharpe has said he often hears people talk about what he wasn’t able to accomplish. When he finally does don his gold jacket, it will be about what he did.

(Top photo: RVR Photos / Imagn Images)