Ben Coates
| No. 81, 87 | |||||||||
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| Position: | Tight End | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Date of birth: | August 16, 1969 | ||||||||
| Place of birth: | Greenwood, South Carolina | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Greenwood (SC) | ||||||||
| College: | Livingstone | ||||||||
| NFL Draft: | 1991 / Round: 5 / Pick: 124 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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| Receptions: | 499 |
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| Receiving Yards: | 5,555 |
| Touchdowns: | 50 |
| Player stats at NFL.com | |
Ben Terrence Coates (born August 16, 1969) is a former American football tight end in the National Football League and former CIAA football coach and former NFL tight ends coach. Coates didn't play football until his senior year at Greenwood High School, and was a multi-sport player at Livingstone College located in Salisbury, North Carolina. As a gridiron player at Livingstone, he broke nearly all meaningful records at the school, but due to his split-sport performances, against weak competition, for a non-notable school, he received little notice outside of the CIAA. While a college student, he joined Phi Beta Sigma fraternity through the Upsilon Chapter at Livingstone College.
Considered an out-of-nowhere prospect, Coates was picked in the fifth round of the 1991 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots. His first two years with the Patriots were fairly uneventful; in his rookie year he had ten catches for 95 yards and a two-yard touchdown against the Indianapolis Colts that forced overtime in a 23-17 Patriots win. In his second season, he had twenty catches for 171 yards and three touchdowns.
His career changed with the 1993 arrival of quarterback Drew Bledsoe and legendary head coach Bill Parcells to the Patriots franchise. Parcells, known for his reliance on tight ends, frequently used then-rookie quarterback Bledsoe on passes to Coates, and the tight end led the Patriots in receptions in 1993 with 53 catches for 629 yards and eight scores, two of them in New England's season-ending overtime win over Miami.
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