Shannon Sharpe’s fourth NFL season in 1993 began with a $20,000 bet against his brother, Sterling. At the time, Shannon was playing tight end for the Denver Broncos, while Sterling was the Green Bay Packers’ wide receiver. On top of that competition, the Sharpe brothers wagered on who would record more receptions that season. It was an incentive for Shannon to play better, but his position in Denver was not in his favor.
During the 1992 season, the Broncos did not feature Sharpe heavily in their offense. As a result, Sharpe finished with just 640 yards on 53 receptions. Still, Sharpe believed the team’s new offensive system in 1993 would allow him to produce more, and he had a $100,000 contract incentive tied to that. But things didn’t unfold the way Sharpe expected, and the NFL legend just revealed how that reality affected his mindset with incentives.
“I did away with the incentives in my contract,” Shannon Sharpe said on the latest episode of The Night Cap podcast. “After they screwed me over that hundred grand, I ain’t put no more incentives in my contract. Man, I was supposed to get a $100,000 for 1,000 yards. So, I had 995 yards. In the first half, I had 116 yards and 2 touchdowns on 6 catches, and ain’t catch another pass to go in the second half.”
After being drafted as a wide receiver in 1990, Sharpe struggled to make an impact, catching only 29 passes in his first two seasons. This prompted a major change in 1993, when the Broncos converted him to tight end, and he signed a new contract extension worth $685,000 extension that included a $100,000 yardage incentive.
Under the new deal, Sharpe would earn the bonus if he finished the 1993 regular season with at least 1,000 receiving yards. Sharpe looked determined to chase that mark and win the bet against his brother. In Week 1 against the New York Jets, Sharpe led the Broncos in receiving with 7 catches for 79 yards.
The Broncos never had to incentivize Unc to get him to show up to offseason workouts. He was shredded like a tax return
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But as the season continued, Sharpe recorded only nine games with 50-plus receiving yards and six games with 5-plus receptions. Despite the inconsistency in his production, Sharpe entered the regular-season finale against the Las Vegas Raiders with a real shot at hitting his target.
Before that final game, the Broncos’ TE had already accumulated 880 yards on 75 catches. That meant Sharpe needed just 121 more yards to hit the 1,000-yard mark. But in that game, Sharpe recorded just 6 receptions for 115 yards. So, Sharpe finished the season with 995 receiving yards, which left him 6 yards short of the incentive mark. To make matters worse, Sharpe also lost the bet with his brother as he finished the year with 81 catches, while Sterling’s tally was 122.
“The harder you work for something, and when it doesn’t come to fruition, the more it hurts,” Sharpe said in an interview earlier this year while talking about losing the $100k incentives.
“I don’t care what, if you work for something really hard, and when it doesn’t pan out, it hurts like hell. And anybody that tells you it doesn’t, they’re not working hard enough or it doesn’t mean enough to them.”
Over his 14-year NFL career, Shannon Sharpe eventually surpassed the 1,000-yard mark three different times. But the disappointment from the 1993 season convinced Sharpe to remove incentives from his NFL contracts entirely. Sharpe admitted to feeling cheated by the Broncos despite working hard to reach his goals that season.
Why did Shannon Sharpe fail to cross the 1000-yard mark in 1993?
Shannon Sharpe entered the 1993 season finale determined to meet his production goals, but the Broncos had bigger priorities that day. Before kickoff, it was already clear that the Broncos and Raiders would meet again in the Wild Card round. But if Denver won the regular-season matchup, they would host the playoff game.
So, the Broncos focused more on securing the win than on feeding Sharpe the ball. In the first quarter of the game, the Broncos jumped out to a 10-0 lead, but the Raiders responded with a touchdown. In the second quarter, Sharpe caught a 54-yard pass from John Elway to score a touchdown.
After Denver took a 27-13 lead, Sharpe was determined to reach his goal and expected more opportunities in the second half. But those chances never came despite Sharpe staying on the field till the end of the game.
“I played all,” Sharpe said while recalling that game in an interview back in 2023. “I didn’t get another pass thrown my way. I didn’t get another play.”
Although the Raiders mounted a comeback to win 33-30 in overtime, the season wasn’t a total loss for Denver or Sharpe. The team still reached the playoffs, and Sharpe’s performance was strong enough to earn him First-Team All-Pro honors and a new contract from the Broncos. Yet, the memory of missing that bonus by just 6 yards still lingers with Sharpe due to the effort he put in that season.
