South Carolina Football: Ranking the top-20 NFL Gamecocks of all-time

South Carolina Football’s Greatest NFL Player of All-Time:
Wide Receiver/Kick Returner Sterling Sharpe

Sterling Sharpe (1983-1987) was the best South Carolina football player to ever play in the NFL. Frankly, it isn’t even close. Sharpe was viewed as one of the two best wide receivers in football along with Jerry Rice. In fact, in some of those seasons, Sharpe outperformed Rice.

Sharpe set the NFL’s all-time single-season receptions record in 1992 (108) and then broke his own record in 1993 (112). He led the league in receptions three times, yardage once, and touchdowns twice, and he won the “Triple Crown” in ’92 when he led the league in all three categories, just the sixth time in the history of the NFL that had happened.

In addition to breaking the receptions record twice, Sharpe delivered the second-most receiving touchdowns in a season in 1994 when he caught 18 scores and became the first player to ever catch 100 balls in back-to-back seasons in ’92 and ’93.

Tragically, the great Sterling Sharpe has his career cut short while still in his prime. A neck injury suffered while blocking former Gamecock teammate Brad Edwards ended his career at age 29 in the regular season’s final game.

During Sharpe’s seven-year career in the League, he only trailed Jerry Rice in total receptions, yards, and touchdowns (Rice is the all-time leader in each category). When his brother Shannon Sharpe was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a tight end, he said confidently and correctly that he believed he was the only player in the Hall of Fame who was the “second-best” football player in his family.