I think we can all agree that the four most important criteria are (in no particular order):
1. Blocking
2. Receiving
3. Longevity
4. Quotability
Sharpe gets very high marks in three of the four. Regarding the last category which hasn't been discussed very much yet, here is a partial list of Sharpe quotes (in no particular order):
1. "I am not a good talker, I am a great talker, because I do it so often. ... When I was in college, I'd get in the mirror 20 minutes at night before I'd go to bed and talk to myself. I'd ask questions, answer questions, and just talk in general. I've kind of perfected it now."
2. After former Broncos quarterback Brian Griese got tripped on the stairs of his home by his golden retriever Bella, and sprained his left ankle: "The dog stood up on his hind legs and gave him a push? You might want to get rid of that dog, or put him in the circus, one of the two."
3. Reflecting on his less-than-stellar high school academic career: "I didn't graduate cum laude, I graduated, 'Thank you, Lawdy.' With my grades, I couldn't have gotten out of prison."
4.. On comments by defensive tackle Daryl Gardener after his falling out with the Broncos: "It's hard to say somebody doesn't like you when they give you $5 million. I wish a lot of people didn't like me. If you're going to give me $5 million, you can hate me."
5. "Brian is so smart that he does not have to do a whole lot of thinking."
6. On $40 million quarterback Jake Plummer: "I think Mike (Shanahan) and the organization have put a lot of eggs in his basket. We just hope he doesn't trip on the way to the market."
7. On talking smack: "You know how many people have tried to shut me up in the last 11 years? A lot of them. You know who's actually been able to do it? My mom and my grandma. My brother can't do it; I'm better looking, I've got more rings and I got more money."
8. After Oakland Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski vowed not to initiate any cheap shots against his former Denver Broncos teammates in a game: "That's awful nice of him to send that message to us. We anticipate the worst and just hope for the best. Someone always says, 'That's not a reflection of him, he just made some bad decisions.' At some point in time, the decisions reflect the person."
9. Phone call he pretended to make, for the benefit of television viewers, late in a 1996 Denver rout of New England: "President, call in the National Guard! Send as many men as you can spare! Because we are killing the Patriots! They need emergency help!"
10. On Giants defensive back Jason Sehorn's money portfolio vs. his own: "He's probably got more money; he's got a wife that's an actress. My girlfriend doesn't work."
11. On his first job: "Field labor, cropping tobacco. I knew I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. I wanted to be a lawyer, but then I realized that Perry Mason and Andy Griffin weren't real."
12. Advice to Siragusa: "I'd tell him to stay away from the crab shacks and the pizza parlors. Goose weighed 342 pounds at the beginning of the season; I assure you he doesn't weigh 342 at the end of the season."
13. A vow prior to Super Bowl XXXII vs. Green Bay: "If the Packers cover me one-on-one and beat my butt, then I will renounce my citizenship, move out of the country and leave all of my assets to your account."
14. On growing up poor in Georgia: "We were so poor, a robber once broke into our house and we ended up robbing the robber."
15. On Rush Limbaugh: "I don't know if Rush Limbaugh knows the difference between a screen porch and a screen play, but we'll see."
16. "Always turn to the sports page first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page is nothing but man's failures."
17. About growing up in Georgia and hating the Falcons: "I've pretty much been in Atlanta my whole life, and I never liked the Falcons. What was there to like about them? They lost all the time. If you had a pair of cleats on and you were in Fulton County (Stadium), they'd put you in the ballgame, they were so bad. For $20, you could sit in the luxury box with the owner."
18. About the four people he'd invite to a dinner party: "Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Jordan and Halle Berry. I'd talk to Gates, Buffett and Jordan first, and then me and Halle would go get another table in the back that's candlelit. And I'd let them discuss whatever they want to discuss."
19. After the Broncos' 38-3 victory over the Miami in a divisional playoff game he told the Dolphins to tell coach Jimmy Johnson "to have his office ready because we're going to need it to break down film" for the Super Bowl.”
20. After knocking off the Chiefs in Arrowhead: "We came into their house. We drank all their wine. And we didn't even say 'Thank you.”
21. Someone suggests Falcons safety Eugene Robinson is a pretty darn good talker, too. Big mistake. “Eugene can't outtalk me and he can't cover me. Even though he went to Colgate, I'm smarter than him. I don't have a Harvard degree, but I can count to a million.”
22. After a game in Arrowhead he said something along the lines to the sideline fans. "this is not your house, it is our house, we own this house, and you haven't paid the rent. so now the rent is overdue, and we are taking our house back."
23. On matrimony: “Yeah, I get lonely, but I don't get near lonely enough to get married.”
24. On the Bengals: "The only way I'd play for the Cincinnati Bengals is if they gave me $20 million and didn't put my name on the back of the jersey."
25. His philosophy about stepping up in big games: "You have to go for greatness. After all, they didn't call him Alexander the Mediocre."
26. On his first trash-talking incident: "Elementary school. I had a speech class. You get to a word and the teacher says, `Fellow students, don't you help him, let me help him, and we want you to sound the words out.' So this kid got to a word he couldn't pronounce and the teacher was like, `OK, Johnny sounds like?' And I said, `Sounds like Johnny can't read.'"
27. "You couldn't tackle me in a phone booth!"
28. Monday of Super Bowl week "We've got 17,500 fans. They've got 17,500 fans. That's 35,000. How many people does this place hold? 75,000? That's 40,000 left, right? They don't care. They're going to be so drunk, they don't care who wins.''
29.“Think about what I've done this year. I got a guy suspended, got one guy cut, one coach resigned. Another thought about resigning. I'm pretty good. I might go into politics.”