Oh, Brother : You Can Bet That Bronco Tight End Shannon Sharpe Wishes He Hadn’t Made This Wager With Sterling, Who Led the NFL in Receptions

It was a rivalry born soon after they were.

First, it was simple competition for brothers Sterling and Shannon Sharpe. Who could mow the lawn the fastest? Who could take the trash out the quickest?

Then, the stakes got higher. Who could catch more footballs? In high school. In college. In the pros.

And finally, the stakes rose to $20,000.

That was the bet between Sterling, the 28-year-old wide receiver of the Green Bay Packers, and Shannon, the 25-year-old tight end of the Denver Broncos, to be won by the brother who caught the most balls in the 1993 regular season.

“I felt early on in the year that I would have an opportunity to beat him,” Shannon said.

Wrong.

Sterling, coming off a season in which he caught an NFL-record 108 passes, surpassed that with 112. Whenever the Packers needed yardage, they had Brett Favre throw to him.

Shannon, after catching a career-high 53 passes last season, increased that to 81 this season, third best in the AFC and the most by a Bronco in 28 years. Lionel Taylor caught 85 in 1965, the days of the wide-open American Football League.

But long before Shannon finished the regular season in spectacular fashion, catching six passes for 115 yards and two touchdowns last week against the Raiders, he had settled up with his brother, paying him $5,000 about seven weeks ago.

“I probably would have kept the bet on, but the thing was, it was just getting more publicity than either one of our accomplishments was,” Shannon said. “I think it was starting to become a distraction because when people wanted to talk to us, they wanted to talk about--actually just talk to me because he doesn’t really talk to the media--they wanted to talk about the wager.”

Sterling’s silence with reporters is mute evidence of the different course the brothers have taken to reach the NFL.

After playing three sports at Georgia’s Glennville High, Sterling went on to South Carolina, where he caught 74 passes for 10 touchdowns in one season and wound up as the Packers’ first-round draft choice in 1988.

Shannon’s route was much lower in profile. He, too, attended Glennville High, but then, because of academic requirements, wound up at small Savannah State College in Georgia. He was drafted by the Broncos in 1990 in the seventh round.

The expectations for Shannon were far different than for Sterling. So was the pressure. And therein lies the problem.

“He was a first-rounder and, in his first year, he didn’t put up all-world numbers,” said Shannon of Sterling, who still caught 55 passes for 791 yards his first year, a great season for some. “They questioned whether he had breakaway speed. They questioned his toughness. They questioned a lot of other things about him.

“The next year, he comes back and leads the league in receiving and, all of a sudden, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Everybody wants to talk to him. . . . Well, hey, he’s not so soon to forget after you said all those bad things about him. . . . I don’t think he’ll ever really forgive them for what they said about him. I don’t think he’ll ever talk to the Green Bay media.”

Shannon is readily accessible.

“I never really had a problem with the media in Denver, with the exception of this year (when) they said some things I didn’t really like,” he said. “They never really said anything derogatory, but I guess they couldn’t. I mean, I was a seventh-rounder. If I came in and I was a flop, so what?

“I came in and gradually worked my way up to be one of the better tight ends in the league, so they can only say good things about me.”

And there’s plenty to say. At 6 feet 2 and 230 pounds, Sharpe has the size to play tight end, but he also has enough speed to roam downfield.

Just ask Raider safety Eddie Anderson, who tried to catch Sharpe last week when quarterback John Elway hooked up with his favorite target on a 54-yard touchdown play.

In that game, Sharpe also caught a one-yard scoring pass.

And Sunday, the Raiders will get to see him again in their wild-card playoff game at the Coliseum.

Before the first game of the season, Sharpe wrote, “Time has come” on the shirt he wears under his jersey.

And indeed it has. He might not be the best pass catcher in his own family, but he has become Denver’s clutch receiver and one of the best in the AFC and, barring injury, figures to stay at that level for years to come.

And that’s a pretty safe bet.