Shedeur-ly Not?!

Shedeur-ly Not?!

Why did Shedeur Sanders slide to the fifth round and what will come next for him?

144. Shedeur Sanders will certainly never forget that number. That’s the pick that he was selected with in the 2025 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns. Sheduer, son of Deion ‘Prime Time’ Sanders (two-time Super Bowl champion and one of the most gifted athletes of the 1990s) did not expect to fall that far in the draft, with some people mocking him to go as high as number one overall. His father certainly did not expect him to fall that far. Maybe that was part of the reason why the 23 year-old quarterback out of Colorado tumbled through the rounds with the world watching.

The Shedeur Slide as it will be forever known was the main storyline of this year’s NFL Draft, which took place in Green Bay just ten days ago. Per NFL Mock Draft Database’s pre-draft consensus big board, Shedeur was mocked to go in the top twelve picks in Wisconsin this time around. With a number of teams in the ten to twenty range seemingly set at quarterback for the coming years, it was probably more realistic to expect that Sanders was going to get picked up by the Steelers with the 21st overall pick. When that pick came and went, the Giants then moved up to 25th overall only to take Jaxson Dart as the second quarterback off the board in round one. As the opening night of the draft came and went, it became clear that teams were not interested in using any of their valuable early picks on Shedeur.

Day two displayed more of the same for the Sanders family as Tyler Shough (Saints), Jalen Milroe (Seahawks) and Dillon Gabriel (Browns) were all taken off the board at the quarterback position. Once day three rolled around and the Browns ultimately picked their second quarterback of the draft with pick 144 the saga came to an end, but in another sense it had only just begun. The next step in the coverage of this year’s draft that almost all media outlets seemed to follow, was the why behind the Shedeur Slide.

This brings me back to Deion. It has been alleged over the years that Coach Prime was not entirely engaged in his pre-draft interviews back when he was going through the same process that his son has just faced. People have suggested that Deion wanted teams to impress him more than he wanted to impress them, and judging by the comments of Todd McShay of The Ringer, it seems Shedeur may have approached his pre-draft interviews with a little of the same gusto. McShay stated on his podcast that “Shedeur didn’t have a great interview with Brian Daboll in a private visit”. The level of how badly this interview went will remain unknown with Daboll since strategically answering questions on his thoughts on Sanders, but McShay went on to state that Shedeur “didn’t like it” when he “got called out” on not being prepared for an install package that Daboll questioned him on.

The main difference between Deion and Shedeur was their perceived talent levels coming out of college. For all of Deion’s talk, he had the walk to back it up – going fifth overall in the 1989 NFL Draft following two unanimous All-American seasons at Florida State. Shedeur on the other hand was impressive in flashes with the Colorado Buffaloes, but I would agree with the assertion that with his father coaching a team around his strengths at a college level, the transition to the NFL will be a difficult one for Shedeur. Couple these talent related concerns with the possible character issues in the face of getting called out on knowledge gaps, and you have the perfect storm of an NFL Draft weekend slide for Sanders.

Despite all of this, Shedeur is now a member of the Cleveland Browns heading into this summer. According to Sportrac, Sanders is projected to earn a four-year $4.65 million contract (which includes close to a $450,000 signing bonus) based on where he was drafted by the Browns. Cleveland represents an interesting quarterback situation to say the very least. They have veteran options Joe Flacco (signed a one-year, $4.25 million contract in April), Kenny Pickett (traded to the Browns for a 2025 fifth-round pick and Dorian Thompson-Robinson in March) and DeShaun Watson (too many ridiculous things to note in this article), along with their two rookie picks in Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur. With the Cleveland rookie mini-camp set to take place this weekend (9th to 12th May), all eyes will be on Sanders and Gabriel in their battle for back-up or even possible starting quarterback consideration heading into the rest of the offseason.

We always need something to tie the NFL news cycle over until the real mayhem begins in September, and the progress of Shedeur at the Cleveland Browns will be a storyline that we are all looking forward to watching unfold over the coming months.