Basically, the whole lot went mistaken for Shedeur Sanders within the NFL draft and within the months main as much as it — a lot of it seems to be his personal fault.
Based on CBS Sports activities’ Jonathan Jones, Sanders would purposely do poorly in interviews with sure groups that he wasn’t as serious about being drafted to.
“At a few of these [combine] conferences with sure groups that perhaps Shedeur Sanders didn’t actually need to go to … I used to be instructed that he kind of sandbagged in these interviews,” Jones mentioned.
“I don’t know if he didn’t take them severely, what it was, however he didn’t give it his all in a few of these interviews,” he added. “Rubbed some groups the mistaken method.”
A 12 months in the past, the same sentiment was echoed by his father, Deion Sanders.
“I do know the place I need them to go,” Deion mentioned in March 2024, referring to his sons Shedeur and Shilo. “There’s sure cities the place it ain’t going to occur … It’s going to be an Eli [Manning]. We ain’t doing that.”
Sanders primarily had a couple of main suitors coming into the draft: the Giants, Saints, Steelers and Raiders. All of those groups handed on Sanders within the first spherical. Then the second. And the third. And the fourth.
Sanders slipped to the fifth spherical, the place he wound up because the sixth quarterback off the board when he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns — who had already taken the far much less extremely touted quarterback Dillon Gabriel within the third spherical.
You don’t must be an skilled to say that Sanders probably rated earlier than the draft as a greater quarterback than Gabriel — and possibly each quarterback drafted forward of him other than Cam Ward— however Sanders got here with a unique baggage.
“Shedeur Sanders was clearly proficient sufficient to be chosen within the high 5 on the subject of quarterbacks, he was a top-five quarterback on this 12 months’s class,” Jones mentioned. “The distinction right here is how he and people round him dealt with the draft course of.”
From the “sandbagged” mix interviews and onward, Sanders’ mishandling of himself didn’t cease.
“Then you definitely proceed, the place it was a professional day that, frankly, was simply type of common,” Jones mentioned. “He will get his jersey quantity retired at Colorado — one thing that’s actually simply not seen in main school soccer — how shortly it was completed and contemplating the shortage of accolades in his profession.”
Since groups didn’t view Sanders as an otherworldly expertise, they finally determined that he wasn’t definitely worth the headache.
“All of this stuff started so as to add up for groups,” Jones added.
Sanders’ gorgeous slip within the draft will go down in historical past — and can probably function a lesson to those that come after him.
“That is clearly a method for the NFL and its groups to let him and anybody else after him know: you possibly can’t comport your self on this method shifting ahead,” Jones mentioned.
