Antonio Gates Looking to Lead Chargers Into Super Bowl

SAN DIEGO -- He has the hands of an elite wide receiver, the feet of a basketball player.

So why is Antonio Gates, the great tight end for the San Diego Chargers, vowing to open his mouth more this year?

"I'm trying to become somewhat of a leader," Gates told FanHouse.

If words were needed in recent years, Gates left the talking to others. Teammates had only to watch him prepare and perform to know Gates, named to six Pro Bowls in his seven NFL seasons.

"He's been one of those guys who shows people by example, which is fine by us," said outside linebacker Shawne Merriman, a teammate for the last six years.

Even if it makes him feel awkward, Gates will counsel or prod teammates this year.

"I'm getting out of my comfort zone," he said. "I'm helping other guys. When you want to win, sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone. That was a path I headed to this offseason."

San Diego's mistake-filled loss to the New York Jets last January, Gates said, is a big part of it.

"What it does is motivate you to never want to come back to that feeling," he said. "Words really can't explain how it motivates you."

Gates has never played in a Super Bowl. Seems he expected the Chargers to get there last winter.

"We did some great things in that game, but ultimately when you talk about winning or losing, it's the same things you talk about when you were a kid -- taking care of that ball, or taking it away. Penalties. And we lost that battle."
- Antonio Gates The Chargers, 13-3 and seeded second, entered the playoffs at their healthiest all season. Their coach Norv Turner said the bye week's extra practices had prepared the offense for Rex Ryan's crafty defense. A goat in the playoff loss to the Jets five years earlier, kicker Nate Kaeding was coming off a big season. A victory would've sent the Bolts to Indianapolis for the AFC Championship game, and twice under Turner, the Chargers defeated the Colts in the playoffs.

"If you had to paint a scenario," Gates told me after a recent practice, "we had basically painted a scenario to get to the Super Bowl."

The Jets sprayed green graffiti on the Bolts' scenario.

Ryan's defense outfoxed Turner's offense. Kaeding missed three field goals, the first one a gimme. Philip Rivers threw two interceptions. The Chargers made a rash of stupid penalties and weird mistakes, such as hiking the ball over Rivers' head for the first time all year, practices included.

After the 17-14 defeat, Gates lamented that impostors had kidnapped the Chargers. His fifth trip to the playoffs had ended in a crash-and-burn even more painful than playoff losses to the underdog Patriots and Jets years earlier, also in San Diego.

I'll not soon forget the frustration in Gates' eyes afterward. "That wasn't the Chargers out there," he said an hour after the game, as he stood in the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium.

When Gates watched the horror film the next day, he still didn't recognize the dudes with the lightning bolts on their helmets.

"I only could stand to watch it one time," Gates said. "I don't need to keep watching that, man. I know for a fact, if we did it again over and over and over, we would win more games consistently.

"If you watch the tape, I didn't really feel like they outplayed us," he added. "I think mistakes cost us. Turnovers are the key to any success. And the Jets were making big plays at critical times. They weren't making them all day. But they made them, where they gave themselves an opportunity to put points on the board.

"When we were backed up and we threw that interception down the middle, those were the kind of key plays," Gates said. "All of the penalties, the mistakes -- it was taking the life out of you. That's what really happened for us."

I told him it looked to me like the Chargers choked.

"The terminology is, not playing to the level of what you can play up to," Gates replied. "We did some great things in that game, but ultimately when you talk about winning or losing, it's the same things you talk about when you were a kid -- taking care of that ball, or taking it away. Penalties. And we lost that battle."

Like every other team the Chargers faced last year, the Jets had no defender who could stop Gates. He caught eight passes against Ryan's defense, matching his total in San Diego's playoff upset of the Colts 12 months earlier.

The season may have been his best, as it yielded a career-high in receiving yards (1,157), via his second-best average in yards per catch (14.6) and third-highest catch total (79). Gates clanged two balls against the New York Giants, but by diverting a safety's attention, his down-the-seam threat would set up San Diego's winning touchdown.

In June he turned 30, so he's likely past his athletic prime, but he may be younger than 30 in football years. While his NFL contemporaries were playing college football, he was playing only basketball at Kent State University in Ohio.


"He still has those quick, basketball blow-by-you moves," Merriman said this week.

The Chargers were bullish enough on him to give Gates a five-year, $36.175 million extension in late July, which further encouraged him to expand his role as a leader. When Gates speaks to teammates now, he does so as the senior skill player on an offense that, for the first time in 10 years, will be without running back LaDainian Tomlinson. He's now a Jet.

As a relative novice early in his pro career, Gates nonetheless got the better of linebackers and safeties who couldn't match the 6-foot-4, 265-pounder's blend of agility, strength and explosiveness. Now, he sees the game much more clearly. Therefore, he said, he's able to offset erosion in speed caused by age and a toe injury that slowed him for two years.

No matter what compensations he makes this year, Gates may have both less room and less time to operate than he did last season, because the team's offense is without two of its top-drawer players: wide receiver Vincent Jackson and left tackle Marcus McNeill, each embroiled in a salary dispute.

Gifted with a schedule that's 29th in difficulty, the Chargers may not need Jackson and McNeill to win a fifth consecutive AFC West title. But they are less capable than they'd be with them.

Gates said Jackson last year created more space for him down field than any other teammate in his seven seasons with the Chargers. McNeill's ability to thwart elite pass rushers helped Turner to open up the down field passing game, which was the NFL's best for much of last year.

Ultimately both McNeill and Jackson could return to the club before January, when the playoffs begin.

Gates isn't talking like they're indispensable, and isn't that how a new team leader should talk?



"The reality is, we still have a very, very good team," Gates said after a recent practice. "Despite the situation of what outside people think, we are the guys out there practicing every day. People get caught up in names or situations, but we are the guys that go out there and play, and this team is very, very talented."

He added, "If you were around here this offseason to see everybody here preparing to win, you'd see it. There's a sense of holding everybody accountable. There is a sense of, OK, we don't know what the future holds, but we understand that we've still got our hands in the mix of things."