The NFL Draft in Green Bay was insane. Fans from all over the NFL world flocked to Titletown to find out their respective teams’ future.
The draft had a little bit of everything. A blockbuster trade to open the night. All-time great players like Richard Sherman calling out draft picks. A deafening ovation when the host Packers took Texas wide receiver Matthew Golden with their first-round pick.
But all drama paled in comparison to Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders dropping to the fifth round after being projected as a top ten pick.
Sanders’ slide broke everyone from ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr., to President Donald Trump.
By the time Sanders was picked 144th by the Cleveland Browns on the third day of the draft, there was already a cascade of differing opinions about why his draft stock went south.
“What is wrong with NFL owners, are they stupid?” President Donald Trump posted after Sanders wasn’t picked in the first round. “He should be picked immediately by a team that wants to win.”
Kiper had Sanders being selected 9th by the New Orleans Saints in his final NFL mock draft. Kiper melted down on ESPN television after Sanders slid out of both the first and second rounds, calling NFL owners “clueless” when it comes to drafting quarterbacks.
Sanders, who was hosting what has to be history’s most awkward draft party, received a phone call allegedly from the New Orleans Saints asking if he was ready to finally be drafted.
It wasn’t the Saints on the phone at all, but rather the 21-year-old son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, pranking Sanders. Jax Ulbrich had found Sanders’ phone number on his dad’s Ipad and decided to prank call.
Sanders’ slide has been debated all week. Some called it racist collusion on the part of NFL owners to put a brash, cocky young Black man in his place a la Colin Kaepernick.
Others say Sanders is entitled and, frankly, not even very good.
Sanders did himself no favors with his persona and affect both during the college football season and throughout the draft process.
Sanders is the son of Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, universally recognized as the greatest defensive back in NFL history, and currently the head coach at the University of Colorado. During the college football season the father-son duo had conflicts with media and opponents alike, nearly always resulting in criticism of how they carried themselves.
Deion made waves when he retired Shedeur’s number at Colorado, mere months after the completion of his son’s fairly pedestrian collegiate career. Colorado went 13-11 with Sanders at quarterback, and lost the only bowl game he participated in.
Deion then held his son out of the NFL draft combine as well as the Senior Bowl.
Shedeur Sanders’ meetings with NFL teams ahead of the draft were reportedly disastrous as well. One draft analyst said Sanders had an awful meeting with the New York Giants in which he got into it with Giants head coach Brian Daboll.
Another NFL assistant said Sanders was “the worst formal interview I’ve ever been in in my life. He’s so entitled … He has horrible body language. He blames teammates … but the biggest thing is he’s not that good.”
At the heart of the criticism is the idea that Shedeur carries himself like he is every bit the all-time talent his dad Deion was and that people should be falling all over themselves for his services.
But even if one agrees that Sanders is not the prodigy he claims he is, history is certainly on his side. Trump was right: teams that want to win have to draft the stud quarterback when they get the chance.
The Hall of Fame is littered with people who slid on draft day or went unrecognized.
Lamar Jackson, Aaron Rodgers and Dan Marino each slid to the very end of the first round.
Brett Favre and Drew Brees were 2nd-round picks; Russell Wilson was a 3rd-round pick; and the GOAT, Tom Brady, was a 6th-round pick.
It feels like there will be no middle ground for Shedeur Sanders.
Either he will take his place among those names and achieve NFL greatness or his greatness will exist solely in the mind of himself and his father.
