Joey Bosa is the only rookie from the 2016 NFL Draft class who has not yet signed a contract, and he’s certainly a high profile holdout. Now, other teammates are chiming in on the situation, and one who can certainly relate to Bosa’s struggles is Antonio Gates, who had a high profile holdout of his own 11 years ago.
Gates talked to the San Diego Union-Tribune about Bosa’s holdout, and had some advice for the Ohio State product.
“My advice to any player that’s going through any kind of contract situation is that, at one point, you’ve got to be a man and you’ve got to understand that you’ve got to get ready to play,” he said Monday.
Gates played a large role in ending his own contractual dispute because he knew he had to get ready for the upcoming season and couldn’t come into it unprepared.
“Eventually, I ended up saying, ‘I need to get ready,’ ” said Gates, who had caught passes from amateur quarterbacks while his agent sought a multi-year deal. “To me, it meant a lot for me to go out and perform.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to just, as a man, you’ve got to step in and say, ‘This is what it’s going to be,’ ” he said. “Because sometimes, whether or not (there is) miscommunication with the general manager or the agent, whatever it is, at the end of the day, it’s your life, it’s your career.
“And you kind of know what’s best for you, and you know what you need. You still have to have that tunnel vision of being able to go out and perform at the highest level. So, to me, that was always the determining factor when I had issues.”
Gates ended up being suspended for three games since the two sides agreed to a contract well after the team imposed deadline, but even then, the tight end knew the lessons he needed to heed going forward.
“Hopefully everything will work itself out with Joey,” Gates said, “and he’ll be here ready to go.”
