Green Bay Packers legend Sterling Sharpe inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame

In 2011, retired NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe started his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech by talking about his older brother, Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe. 

“I’m the only pro football player that’s in the Hall of Fame and I’m the second best player in my own family,” Shannon Sharpe said. 

Sterling Sharpe has finally joined his brother in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — more than a decade later. Sterling Sharpe and the other 2025 Hall of Fame inductees were enshrined in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday.

He’s the 29th member of the Green Bay Packers elected to the Hall of Fame, according to the team. Fans have spent years clamoring for him to be inducted.

“I stand before you today as the 382nd member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of love,” Sterling Sharpe said in his Hall of Fame speech. During the speech, he spoke about the importance of following before leading, and credited his success to his coaches and family.

The Sharpes are the first brothers elected to the Hall of Fame. Sterling Sharpe invited his brother on stage as he closed out his speech, and referenced his brother’s 2011 remarks.

“The last time I was here, you said that you were the only pro football player in the Hall of Fame that could say that you were the second best player in your own family,” he said. “But it would be my extreme pleasure for you to be the only player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with two gold jackets.”

Sterling Sharpe was selected by the Green Bay Packers with the seventh overall pick in the 1988 NFL draft. 

In seven seasons in Green Bay, Sterling Sharpe was a five-time Pro Bowl selection, a three-time First-Team All Pro and was selected as a member of the NFL’s 1990s All-Decade Team.

During the 1989, 1992 and 1993 seasons, he led the league in receptions. He also set a then-NFL record in 1992 for catches in a single season and broke his own record in 1993. In the 1992 season, Sterling Sharpe also earned the receiving triple-crown — leading the NFL in catches, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. He led the league in touchdowns again in 1994. 

When he retired after the ’94 season, he held seven Packers regular season receiving records, and tied for two more. 

Over the years, Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre has credited Sterling Sharpe for helping him find success when he took over as the team’s starting quarterback in the early ’90s. 

“He made me right — I mean, I threw to him in triple coverage,” Favre said of his former teammate during a 2023 podcast interview. “He was an amazing player.”

For Cheeseheads, one of his most memorable moments came in the first round of the playoffs in the 1993 season. Sterling Sharpe, playing through injury, caught five passes for 101 yards and three touchdowns — including the game-winning score with about a minute left in the contest.

His performance that day elevated the Packers to their first playoff win in 11 years.

But a neck injury forced him to retire at the age of 29, just a few years before the team would go on to win Super Bowl 31.

His brother, Shannon Sharpe, gave him his Super Bowl ring after defeating the Packers in Super Bowl 32. In his speech on Saturday, Sterling Sharpe called it “the most precious gift” he’d ever received.

“I don’t have blood, sweat and tears with my teammates, like many of these gentlemen do,” he said. “I wear this ring because of love.”

Sterling Sharpe also said everything he did — on and off the football field — was to set a positive example for his younger brother, from trying to stay strong when their father died to going to college and playing in the NFL.

“Everything I did was for an audience of one,” he said. “You see, when you grow up in rural South Georgia, it’s hard to find heroes, and I didn’t want this person to look outside our own dinner table to find a role model.”