Sterling Sharpe inducted into Pro Football HOF: Induction long overdue for Packers star WR

When the Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrined its 2025 class in Canton, Ohio on Saturday, perhaps the NFL’s greatest wide receiver that the average football fan isn’t familiar with finally received his due: Sterling Sharpe.

No, this isn’t a typo referring to Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe. This story and this weekend is about Sterling, Shannon’s older brother. There was actually a time when Shannon was referred to as Sterling’s younger brother. The Green Bay Packers drafted the elder Sharpe seventh overall in the 1988 NFL Draft out of South Carolina at a time in which Green Bay, the smallest professional sports city in the United States, was viewed as a football wasteland. 

Two decades had passed since the Packers won the second of the NFL’s first two Super Bowls in 1967, and Green Bay had returned to the playoffs just twice in that span (1972 and 1982) with one postseason win to show across those two trips. After an unremarkable rookie year in 1988 (791 yards receiving and a touchdown on 55 catches), Sharpe ascended to stardom in Year 2 in 1989. He erupted for an NFL-leading 90 catches for 1,423 yards and 12 receiving touchdowns, which earned him his first of five Pro Bowl selections as well as his first of three first team All-Pro selections. 

Sharpe and quarterback Don “Magic Man” Majkowski developed a strong connection that year with the Packers quarterback leading the NFL in passing yards (4,318), completions (353), pass attempts (599), fourth quarter comebacks (5) and game-winning drives (7). The team’s 10-6 record wasn’t enough to reach the postseason that year, but it’s clear the Packers had a superstar developing in Sharpe. He earned another Pro Bowl nod in 1990, but he began flashing Hall of Fame production in his mid and late twenties following a franchise-altering switch at the quarterback position.

Green Bay traded a first-round pick for Atlanta Falcons backup quarterback Brett Favre in February of 1992, and fireworks flew deep downfield between Favre and Sharpe almost instantly. In his first season as Favre’s go-to guy in 1992 at the age of 27, Sharpe became the NFL’s second receiving triple crown winner since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger by leading the league in catches (108), receiving yards (1,461) and receiving touchdowns (13). He is now one of just five players to win the receiving triple crown since 1970. At the time, Sharpe’s 108 catches in 1992 served as the NFL’s single-season record. His encore in 1993 at the age of 28 was rewriting the NFL’s single-season catches record once again with a league-leading 112 receptions for 1,274 yards receiving and 11 receiving touchdowns. 

The second year of Favre and Sharpe teaming up resulted in the Packers’ first playoff victory since 1982 in a 28-24 road win at the divisional rival Detroit Lions in the NFC wild card round. Sharpe starred with five catches for 101 yards receiving and three touchdowns, including the game-winner from 40 yards out in the back right corner of the end zone with 40 seconds left to play. Sharpe balled out again the following week at the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC divisional round with six catches for 128 yards receiving and a touchdown, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the eventual Super Bowl champions in a 27-17 defeat. 

How Sharpe’s career ended before the age of 30

Ironically, Sharpe played all 112 regular season games he could have suited up for in his seven NFL seasons, and he still played like one of the league’s best in 1994 at the age of 29, what would be his last year of professional football. He racked up a career-high and NFL-most 18 receiving touchdowns in addition to 94 catches for 1,119 yards receiving, but disaster struck in the penultimate regular season game of the year against the Atlanta Falcons. At the time, the Packers split their home games between Lambeau Field in Green Bay and Milwaukee County Stadium, also the then-home of the Milwaukee Brewers. 

Playing at Milwaukee County Stadium against the Falcons, Sharpe was blocking on a routine run up the middle for four yards, but his head was flipped backwards by Falcons defensive back Brad Edwards. He laid on the ground motionless for close to four minutes before eventually walking to the sideline by himself. 

A week later in the regular season finale at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Sharpe helped drag the Packers back to the postseason with a 9-7 record thanks to his nine catches for 132 yards receiving and three touchdowns in what would be the last game of his career. That’s because he reaggravated his injury against the Buccaneers. It ended up being a neck issue that required fusion surgery on his C1 and C2 vertebrae, and since the procedure left him with minimal range of motion and vulnerable to re-injury, Sharpe called it a career. He finished with 595 career catches, a Packers career record at the time, 8,312 receiving yards and 65 receiving touchdowns in seven seasons. In the span of Sharpe’s career, only San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice, the receiving GOAT, racked up more catches (620) and receiving touchdowns (91) than the Packers No. 1 option. 

* Behind only Jerry Rice

The Hall of Fame wait

As arguably the second-best wide receiver in the entire NFL throughout his seven-year career and a receiving triple crown winner, Sharpe’s spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame seemed like a formality, even though his career ended prematurely. However, he had to endure one of the longest waits ever to receive his spot. Perhaps some of that had to do with his icy relationship with the media, the people who cover the league and vote on who receives the honor of football immortality. 

“As a football player, I was unapproachable,” Sterling Sharpe said, via WIS News. “I didn’t want to be approached. I didn’t want to be famous. I didn’t want to make friends. I’ve got a job to do and I’m going to do this job better than anyone else does anything else.”  

Safety LeRoy Butler, Sharpe’s Hall of Fame Packers teammate, revealed Green Bay teammates noted Sharpe’s isolationist approach and called him “The Hermit.”

“Sterling didn’t want nobody to know what he did,” Butler told The Associated Press, via WIS News. “He didn’t want other receivers mimicking him. His edge was his physicality and his brain.”  

Sharpe ended up waiting on the ballot for 26 years before reaching the finalist ranks for the first time in 2025 through a selection by the Seniors Blue-Ribbon Committee, and he became a Hall of Famer after crossing the 80% threshold for enshrinement. It’s ironic Sharpe had to wait so long because another wide receiver with a similar career profile, the Detroit Lions’ Calvin Johnson, entered the Hall of Fame on his first ballot appearance. Like Sharpe, Johnson’s body broke down around the same age: after “Megatron” completed his age-30 season in 2015. He cited knee, ankle and finger surgeries engulfing his body as the reason for his early retirement. 

Sharpe and Johnson finished with the same number of first team All-Pro selections (three), and Johnson finished with just one more Pro Bowl selection than Sharpe (six) despite playing two more seasons. Their career accolades like times leading the league in different receiving metrics and their season averages for catches, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns across the span of their entire careers are also very close. 

Come Saturday night, Sharpe’s football career will rest in its rightful home in Canton, Ohio, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’ll finally join Johnson, his brother Shannon — becoming the first pair of brothers to join the Pro Football Hall of Fame — and the rest of the NFL’s all-timers as a peer in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That’s exactly where Sterling Sharpe belongs.