In the Age of Hubris, Humility Reigns

The free fall of Shadeur Sanders in the 2025 NFL Draft

[Resident college football expert, John Crimella, and Tailgators Setup Podcast host, Brian Lennon, discuss the big news from this week’s NFL Draft: The Undrafting of Shadeur Sanders]

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John Crimella is writing in Regular Font; Brian Lennon is writing in Italics

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John: At the beginning of the 2024 college football season, it was a forgone conclusion in many people’s minds that Shedeur Sanders would be a first round draft pick and many believed he was the No. 1 overall prospect.

Brian: Count me among them. I thought Cam Ward and Shadeur Sanders would be a 1 or 2 debate, much like we had with Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf back in 1998.

John: He had a fine season overall, one of the more accurate (74% completion rate) passers in the country and put up great numbers (4,134 yards, 37 TDs, 10 INTs). But over the last couple of days as the NFL draft kicked off, he’s been ghosted by the NFL. Why?

Brian: I think, given time in the pocket, Sanders is one of the better college passers I’ve seen in years. His completion rate and accuracy shows that. Since January, however, it seems the NFL illuminati, either GMs, scouts, and coaches, have been at work lowering Sanders’ draft grade. Some times you wonder if it’s just gamesmanship, because one of those teams wants to sneak up and grab him.

J: First, let me say I’ve never been on the Sanders bandwagon, at all.

He has the tools to be a quarterback but I’ve never seen him as “the guy” to lead a team to victory. Maybe that stems from watching him run for his life the past two seasons (not his fault at all, just a truly horrific Buffaloes O-Line).

B: I’ve been a fan of Sanders since his time at Jackson State. I think he shows great vision and smarts. You can’t live in the same house with a Hall of Fame defensive back (and maybe the greatest of all time), and not pick up how to read a defense and exploit its coverage.

To me, Sanders reminds me a lot of Eli Manning. Maybe over hyped coming out of the draft, there were Daddy Issues, but Eli and Shadeur have a pedigree that not many players EVER, have coming into the league. That has got to count for something, in my opinion.

J: Maybe it’s because his teammate Travis Hunter outshined him in so many ways (although I wasn’t truly that high on him either).

Or maybe it was because he and his father, Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, just rub me the wrong way, with their egos and attitudes.

B: Deion’s been rubbing people the wrong way for nearly 40 years. People didn’t like him at Florida State. Tim McCarver didn’t like him when he played for the Atlanta Braves. Cowboy fans hated him when he was on the 49ers. Everyone hated him when he was on the Cowboys.

But through it all, Deion has always delivered. Okay, there was his Redskins and Ravens stint, but you get it.

It couldn’t have been easy playing for Dad — in high school, at Jackson State, or at Colorado. The microscope has been on Shadeur since before the kid could drive, and though you may not like his style, I think he’d pretty done for himself, with his play on the field, and his behavior off of it.

J: So what’s keeping teams from taking this kid?

At this point, unless there is a mysterious third option (unknown injury/health issue), it’s one of two things in my mind: The NFL just clearly does not see him as a QB 1, which let’s be honest, how do they know? Tom Brady and Brock Purdy were not drafted as anything more than QB afterthoughts. One is a pretty solid starting QB, and the other I guess, did alright.

Sanders is a little undersized (6’1 1/2” 212 lbs.), doesn’t possess the greatest of arm strength, people think he’s accurate, but I say some of that was helped out by better plays from his receiving corps (Hunter we’re looking at you!).

B: Again, compare Shadeur to Eli or Brady. Pocket passers, limited mobility, average arm strength, but high football IQ. Will Shadeur put in the work like these two? Nothing has shown me over the last four years that he won’t.

J: In fact, if you look at his first season at Colorado, when Travis Hunter was hurt for a couple of games, Sanders was not as effective. I can see all these things meshing together and causing hesitations. I get it. Quarterback is the most important position on the field, and there’s only one of them. But I think Sanders has shown enough that someone should have given him a shot by now.

That leads to the real problem.

There’s no easy or nice way to say this. League executives have been pushing the same story all spring leading up to the draft.

This kid’s ego is out of control. He comes by that honestly, thanks to who his dad is.

NFL management seems to have seen enough to know that if they draft this kid they’re drafting an entire circus into their organization. Especially now in these later rounds.

B: Again, say what you want about Deion, but I think he’d done a helluva job being a father. How many draft prospects have that type of influence in their homes, let alone on their teams?

This may be more of a reflection on the NFL, and the players in the locker rooms, not being able to adjust to having someone not be begging for money or an opportunity to play. The power dynamic is definitely shifted when it comes to Shadeur. Forget the fact he’s been making NIL money as well.

If the NFL is going to have issues with Sanders, than they better be prepared when players like Nico Iamaleava and others, who’ve already made millions in college, come through those draft tunnels and man-hug commissioner Roger Goodell.

J: Deion was screening teams from this kid as early as the start of last season.

How bad were his interviews? I’d say we may never know, but I get the sense we’ll know sooner than later.

At this point in the draft, Shedeur won’t be drafted as anything other than a backup project.

B: Wherever Sanders ends up, I think it will be great for him because the last thing any Rookie quarterback needs, is unrealistic expectations heaped upon him. How often does it ever work out?

How did Bears rookie Caleb Williams do last season? How was Peyton Manning’s first season? The answer: 28!

J: Don’t twist facts from me either, I’m not saying he can’t become a star in the NFL, it just won’t be what people think and it won’t happen instantly.

But drafting him now, on Day Three, you may be also drafting a host of issues for your organization. God forbid he goes somewhere and the current QB1 has a down, or outright bad season. The fear of having Deion Sanders on TV preaching it’s time “to put my boy in” will be a headache no GM or head coach wants to deal with.

One television talking head said yesterday before the start of round two that if he wasn’t taken tonight he could see him going undrafted. I thought that was ridiculous. I projected him going with pick 83 to the Steelers.

But it didn’t happen.

And there is more and more unease that this young man may not be drafted.

I truly think that would be a crime.

B: Speaking of crimes, this whole scenario whiffs of the 1980s Major League Baseball owners’ collusion, when they conspired to keep players’ salaries, like Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.

J: I think the kid’s earned a shot at the NFL. But in a day and age where all we see is the bluster and braggadocio of how great one is and the many “me, myself and I” moments, it looks like NFL teams, whether organically or purposefully, are making an example of this one.

No one is bigger than the team.

Humility and humbleness still have their place.

At this point, he needs to find a landing spot that can work for all parties. I’m truly not sure where that is now.

Maybe Uncle Jerry can still draft him and set up dad being his coach the following year.

And we all know Cowboys fans love a circus.