Essentially, everything went wrong for Shedeur Sanders in the NFL draft and in the months leading up to it — much of it appears to be his own fault.
According to CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones, Sanders would purposely do poorly in interviews with certain teams that he wasn’t as interested in being drafted to.
“At some of those [combine] meetings with certain teams that maybe Shedeur Sanders didn’t really want to go to … I was told that he more or less sandbagged in those interviews,” Jones said.
“I don’t know if he didn’t take them seriously, what it was, but he did not give it his all in some of those interviews,” he added. “Rubbed some teams the wrong way.”
A year ago, a similar sentiment was echoed by his father, Deion Sanders.
“I know where I want them to go,” Deion said in March 2024, referring to his sons Shedeur and Shilo. “There’s certain cities where it ain’t going to happen … It’s going to be an Eli [Manning]. We ain’t doing that.”
Sanders mainly had a few major suitors coming into the draft: the Giants, Saints, Steelers and Raiders. All of these teams passed on Sanders in the first round. Then the second. And the third. And the fourth.
Sanders slipped to the fifth round, where he wound up as the sixth quarterback off the board when he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns — who had already taken the far less highly touted quarterback Dillon Gabriel in the third round.
You don’t have to be an expert to say that Sanders likely rated before the draft as a better quarterback than Gabriel — and probably every quarterback drafted ahead of him aside from Cam Ward— but Sanders came with a different baggage.
“Shedeur Sanders was clearly talented enough to be selected in the top five when it comes to quarterbacks, he was a top-five quarterback in this year’s class,” Jones said. “The difference here is how he and those around him handled the draft process.”
From the “sandbagged” combine interviews and onward, Sanders’ mishandling of himself didn’t stop.
“Then you continue, where it was a pro day that, frankly, was just sort of average,” Jones said. “He gets his jersey number retired at Colorado — something that’s really just not seen in major college football — how quickly it was done and considering the lack of accolades in his career.”
Since teams didn’t view Sanders as an otherworldly talent, they ultimately decided that he wasn’t worth the headache.
“All of these things began to add up for teams,” Jones added.
Sanders’ stunning slip in the draft will go down in history — and will likely serve as a lesson to those who come after him.
“This is clearly a way for the NFL and its teams to let him and anyone else after him know: you can’t comport yourself in this way moving forward,” Jones said.
