TE Gates announces retirement from NFL


Reuters | Updated: 15-01-2020 01:39 IST | Created: 15-01-2020 01:39 IST
TE Gates announces retirement from NFL

Antonio Gates announced his retirement from football on Tuesday, ending his career with Hall of Fame-caliber numbers. Gates, 39, signed with the San Diego Chargers in 2003 as an unrestricted free agent after playing college basketball, not football, at Kent State. He remained with the organization through 2018 but did not play in 2019.

"I never dreamed that I would play this game of football so long or how fortunate I would be to play it with just one organization," he wrote on Twitter. "I want to thank the Chargers organization, the National Football League, [Chargers owner] Dean Spanos and the Spanos family for the opportunity to live out a dream and play the game I love." Gates added in his announcement that he would remain with the Chargers in a community relations role.

He played in 236 games (190 starts) in his career, amassing 955 catches for 11,841 yards with 116 touchdowns. He's the all-time leader among tight ends in touchdown receptions, and his catches and yards rank him third at the position behind Tony Gonzalez and Jason Witten. Gates was named first-team All-Pro three times and to eight Pro Bowl teams.

--Field Level Media

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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