Antonio Gates wants to come back whole. He wants to be what he was. He wants to be the athlete you remember, the tight end for a new millennium, the prototype too advanced for mass production.
He is aware, however, that his glory days could be dwindling.
SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
Antonio Gates estimates his current physical condition at only 65 to 70 percent.
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“You always worry,” the Chargers' transcendent target said yesterday. “That's just part of human nature. I wonder if I can still go out and be the (No.) 85 that people are used to me being in the past. I think that's part of the challenge.”
Five months removed from surgery on a torn plantar plate in his left big toe, Gates is a key variable in the Chargers' 2008 equation and a constant source of concern. Gates said he was able to perceive progress during yesterday's soft launch of training camp, but his participation in the practice consisted of an individual workout on a separate field and his timetable for a return to contact drills remains pure conjecture.
Less than seven weeks from the season opener against Carolina, Gates estimated his physical condition at only 65 to 70 percent.
“It still remains to be seen how fast I can progress with no pain, just being able to come out here and play,” he said. “I still haven't had (any) weight-bearing things going on.”
Accordingly, Chargers coach Norv Turner said he is developing a contingency playbook in the event Gates is unavailable or limited for the start of the regular season.
Ominously, Turner identified No. 85 as a candidate for the National Football League's Physically Unable To Perform list, a designation that precludes a player from competing in the first six games of the season.
Based on the mobility Gates demonstrated yesterday, and Turner's estimate that his tight end is “on schedule,” the PUP list would seem an unlikely last resort. Still, it's difficult to dismiss that option until Gates can take a hit without suffering a setback.
“I'd like Antonio Gates to get as physically ready to play as he can,” Turner said. “If he's able to practice and play in the last couple of weeks of the preseason, that's a bonus. If it happens before that, we may not use him a lot. If it's later than that, if physically he's all right, he doesn't need a lot of work to get ready to play.
“I don't want to publicize that because a bunch of other guys will line up and want to get in that group. But there aren't many guys like Antonio, not many guys in this league like Antonio.”
Gates is a physical specimen with a craftsman's touch, a singular blend of size, speed and ball skills who might pose the toughest man-to-man matchup in the sport.
In five NFL seasons, the converted basketball star already has scored 43 touchdowns, matching the career total of the first Hall of Fame tight end, Mike Ditka. Gates' 340 receptions exceed the career catches of Hall of Famer John Mackey. None of the seven Hall of Fame tight ends has snared more passes in a single season than did Gates in 2005, when he caught 89.
Yet like his football forebears, Gates may be looking at longevity issues. Tight end is a hybrid position – part glamour, part grunt – and its various demands discourage durability. It's tough to spend so much time in the trenches without losing a step to sustained wear. It's even tougher to find a tight end who is as effective at 30 as he was at 25.
All seven tight ends who have been enshrined in Canton – Ditka, Mackey, Dave Casper, Ozzie Newsome, Charlie Sanders, Jackie Smith and Kellen Winslow – experienced their peak pass-catching season by age 28. Gates turned 28 last month.
Thus while he would like to come back whole, Antonio Gates knows better than to expect it.
“When you get six years in, something's going to be bothering you,” he said. “It ain't a situation where people get out here and feel 100 percent. Your knee might be bothering you, your shoulder, (or) in my case, my ankle at one point was bothering me.
“So it's just being able to play through pain. And that's what a true champion is: It's somebody who can go out and despite the noise and the little tiresome injuries you have, you continue to play and you continue to play well.”
Desire drove Gates to persevere last year when he was clearly diminished, but the effort produced neither a Super Bowl nor lasting sympathy. Toe injuries are taken so lightly, in fact, that Gates' own father scoffed at its severity.
“I went home and my dad is like, 'This is nothing but a toe injury. You'll be all right,' ” Gates recalled. “My dad, he's a manly man. He's a true man. (He said) 'That ain't nothing. You can play with that.' ”
When Gates first dislocated the toe, in January's wild-card playoff game against Tennessee, he assumed it could be popped back into place and that he could resume playing. But he was more of a decoy than a threat in the Chargers' subsequent playoff games, and he is more of a question mark than an exclamation point now.
“Even if and when Antonio is 100 percent and he's going good, it might help him to play 45 of the 60 snaps or 50 of the 65 snaps,” Turner said. “With the other guys, you can give teams some other wrinkles.”
Antonio Gates wants to be what he was. The Chargers must proceed based on what he is.
Tim Sullivan: (619) 293-1033; tim.sullivan@uniontrib.com
