If Shedeur Sanders Is The New Colin Kaepernick, The NFL Won't Scramble In Fear

Forbes

29-04-2025

It's happening again. This time, the anti-NFL folks say Shedeur Sanders is their motivation to quit hugging the league. No tailgating, no office pools and no cheering from the stands or before a TV set. They wish to bring the world's most powerful sports organization to its knees while begging for mercy.
Good luck with that.
And whatever became of Colin Kaepernick?
Sorry, but people can fume all they want over the league's treatment of Sanders, but they are addicted to the NFL like everybody else.
For now, consider how a number of TikTok folks are pledging to purchase Sanders merchandise only from the 2Legendary website of the former University of Colorado quarterback. That's opposed to buying his stuff through NFL Properities, which is the league's official site for selling everything from player jerseys to can coolers to thin rim plastic licensing plate frames.
Perhaps you heard about Sanders. He went from a possible top-three selection in last weekend's NFL draft to the 144th pick overall in the fifth round.
Instead of collecting around $45 million among the draft's elite of the elite, Sanders will get only $4 million guaranteed from the Cleveland Browns after they stopped his free falling. He became America's obsession as the 23-year-old son of Deion Sanders, Colorado's head coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer.
The theories for Shedeur's plunge toward NFL oblivion are multiple. In no particular order, here are the two biggies, and there is a counter for each of them.
(1) Shedeur isn't that good. Nobody ever will confuse his legs with those of Lamar Jackson. Not only that, but his father was a Prime Time blur as a cornerback and as a kick returner along the way to Canton. The younger Sanders also pats the ball before throwing while holding it too long in the pocket.
The counter: He passed for 4,134 yards last season with 37 touchdowns, and he led the nation by completing 74% of his throws. Oh, and guys named John Elway, Dan Marino and Tom Brady were among those who patted the ball before throwing.
(2) Since Shedeur and his father are extremely confident, and since pockets of society prefer meek African Americans when they are highly visible, this was a race thing, especially since the NFL's diversity history isn't the best. You have its shaky record on hiring Black head coaches and other Black executives, and there was the Kaepernick situation, which we'll discuss in a moment.
The counter: The Rooneys own the Pittsburgh Steelers, and they invented the Rooney Rule, which was designed to bring more minorities into the league as head coaches and executives. There also isn't a more powerful Black person in the NFL than Mike Tomlin, entering his 19th year as Steelers head coach. They haven't a proven starting quarterback, but Rooney's team led by Tomlin passed on Shedeur twice on consecutive days of the NFL draft.
Nevertheless, Shedeur can prove his worth in the league before, during and after his battle against four other quarterbacks on the Browns' roster.
Little of that matters to those anti-NFL fans on TikTok or others resurrecting the bygone cries of folks upset over the Kaepernick situation.
In August of 2016, Kaepernick prepared for his sixth NFL season after taking the San Francisco 49ers to two NFC Championship Games, including the Super Bowl, but this was the beginning of his end in the league. He was spotted sitting on the bench during the national anthem of a preseason game.
That eventually led to Kaepernick kneeling throughout the regular season when The Star-Spangled Banner began, and he said he did so to protest social injustice.
Even though Kapernick was without a team after he opted for free agency following the 2016 season and had nobody interested (like Shedeur, to hear some tell it), his movement expanded into the 2017 season among players, celebrities and people overall. Many of his former NFL colleagues kneeled or locked arms, and some teams stayed in their locker rooms during the national anthem.
There were protests outside of the league's headquarters in New York, and Forbes ran a story in October 2016 with the headline of 'Confirmed: NFL Losing Millions Of TV Viewers Because Of National Anthem Protests.'
Hmmmmmm.
Before the 2018 NFL season, Forbes reported the average value of an NFL franchise was $2.57 billion, which was an increase of 2% over the previous season, and that was the smallest increase in seven years.
Let's jump ahead six years, though.
Before last season, Forbes placed the average value of an NFL franchise at $5.7 billion, which was an increase of 11% over 2023 and more than double the average value of an NFL franchise during the height of the Kaepernick controversy. In fact, even though the league's TV ratings dropped by 2% compared to 2023, Sports Business Journal wrote earlier this month that the NFL spent the most recent fiscal year making a record $23 billion.
So much for those Kaepernick protesters againstthe league, and at 37, he hasn't taken an NFL snap in nine years.
In sum, NFL officials are shrugging in the shadows over this Shedeur Sanders outrage. They also are contemplating spending five years from now adding tens of billions to their current $111 billion media rights deal.
Just saying.