Los Angeles Chargers: Antonio Gates deserves one more season

The Los Angeles Chargers have had one of the best, if not the best, tight ends in NFL history in Antonio Gates, who deserves one more year with the Bolts.

Antonio Gates is a bonafide first ballot Hall of Famer and will go down in many people’s book as the greatest tight end to ever play. The Los Angeles Chargers have had the luxury of having Gates for his entire career and Gates was a huge part of some very talented Chargers teams.

Gates and Philip Rivers will go down as one of the best duos in league history with 89 touchdown passes between the two veterans in their career.

Hopefully, the duo can eclipse the 90-touchdown threshold in 2019 if Antonio Gates can get another contract from the Chargers. As of right now, Gates is a free agent, something that will hopefully change before the Chargers start the 2019 season.

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Not many people expected Gates to even play in 2018. The Los Angeles Chargers were insistent that Gates’ time in LA was over and that the franchise had moved on to Hunter Henry and Virgil Green being the two primary tight ends.

However, a torn ACL for Henry changed everything and suddenly the discussion of bringing Gates back became serious. It still took quite some time but in early September Gates and the Chargers agreed to a one-year deal to bring him back.

And while he was not on the field for every down, Gates actually had a fairly big role on the Chargers and had some really big plays as a result. His 333 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns don’t seem like much but the plays Gates would make on third down were huge for this team.

Whenever the Chargers needed six yards on a passing down they could rely on the chemistry between Rivers and Gates.

With Henry returning from injury and Green as the primary backup it might appear as if the Chargers are actually going to move on from Gates. If anything, though, Gates proved that he can have a significant role on this team and is worth another one-year contract.

He does not even have to be on the field all that often and can even take up a lesser role than he had in 2018, saving him for the moments when it really counts.

It might not seem wise to a sign a tight end that might only have 250 receiving yards to another one-year deal but Gates has earned it. He has been nothing but classy and faithful to the Chargers organization and deserves one last hoorah and chance to contend.

This is a Super Bowl contending team that has the talent to win it all. If anyone deserves a ring it is Gates, and there would be no better way to win it than alongside his long-time teammate, Philip Rivers.

A lot of fans are going to be disappointed if the Los Angeles Chargers do no re-sign Antonio Gates. We know it, the Chargers know it and Gates knows it.