Trying to figure out where Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders will land in the NFL draft isn’t easy, but there are several important things we know about him. He’s an elite athlete with impressive arm talent, and he has a famous dad who also happens to be his coach. Shedeur can be electrifying, especially when he escapes from the pocket and makes plays on the run. He’s also one of the top QBs in an NFL draft where top notch quarterbacks are scarce, and that’s where things start to get sticky.
Normally this wouldn’t be a hard situation to predict. Take the worst team in the NFL, assess their quarterback needs, and if they do that’s where Shedeur Sanders will end up. But the presence of Deion Sanders as the ultimate stage dad adds a huge variable to his son’s NFL future, and no one really has a clue as to how this will all shake out.
Shedeur Sanders’ talent is undeniable
If you try to predict Shedeur’s future by using his numbers, you run into some that are simply jaw-dropping. Sanders has thrown for over 60 TDs for Colorado against just 11 picks, and that number alone would usually make NFL scouts and personnel types get on board with with the possibility of drafting him.
Like everything else with Shedeur Sanders, though, it’s not quite that simple. Colorado’s offense is set up to give Sanders the opportunity to post big numbers, and the fact that he plays in the wide-open Big 12 makes it that much easier for him to put up stats that look like something from a video game. Dad has worked the transfer portal hard to bring in talent specifically designed to support Shedeur, so that gives the Colorado QB another unique advantage.
There are other aspects of Shedeur’s game that give pause. He’s not that big, and Sanders has taken some huge hits during his out-of-pocket adventures. That makes him something of a wild card when it comes to what NFL teams are looking for, but that probably won’t hurt his status at all once the pre-draft hype machine gets revved up.
The Deion factor is the biggest wild card
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Deion Sanders during his spectacular career as a superstar athlete and college head coach, it’s never to underestimate his need to be in the spotlight as much as possible. He’s created a unique persona as “Coach Prime,” and the media has bought into his latest hustle lock, stock and barrel.
That includes several comments about where Shedeur will end up playing that are in conflict with the way the NFL draft is normally conducted. Deion doesn’t want Shedeur to end up playing in a cold-weather city, and he’s also stated that he’ll step in privately to keep his son from ending up with “the wrong team.”
That rules out several possible landing destinations right off the bat. The Giants, who have the first pick right now and will almost certainly be drafting Daniel Jones’ successor, are the epitome of a bad team that plays in a cold weather city. Their offensive line is a mess, and they’re about to make a coaching change. There are other candidates on this list of teams, but it’s too soon to make any predictions.
Would Deion Sanders manipulate the draft process to shift Shedeur’s eventual landing destination? Of course he would. The precedent here is the Manning family, specifically Archie, who made it clear behind the scenes that he didn’t want Eli playing for the Chargers, who were then in San Diego. Eli ended up winning Super Bowls in New York, while San Diego “settled” for Phlip Rivers, who proved to be a statistical stud who played in a dozen playoff games for the Chargers.
The big problem here is that we still don’t know who Shedeur Sanders is. He’s expressed admiration for the Raiders now that Tom Brady is a minority owner, but at this point that’s close to meaningless. We do know what his famous dad will do, though, which will make selecting Sedeur as much of an adventure as one of his exciting but unpredictable forays from the pocket.