Column: How Shedeur Sanders' NFL draft slide saga reflects the state of the nation

Chicago Tribune

28-04-2025

Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said it best when addressing the story of the defensive coordinator's 21-year-old son who pranked quarterback Shedeur Sanders on draft day by pretending to be an NFL general manager.
'People are morons,' Stefanski said. 'It's sad.'
Confirmed. Seldom has that been as evident as it was during the weekend's most talked-about story — Sanders sliding from a possible first-round pick to a fifth-rounder by the Browns at No. 144 overall.
It was the perfect storm of sports, media and politics in the post-truth era, where any and all speculation is welcome on social media and facts are regarded as a minor nuisance.
The Shedeur Sanders' saga had everything, starting with the entitled, NIL-era college athlete who refused to put himself through the same NFL-approved evaluation methods as his peers and wound up paying a steep price. His X bio simply says 'LEGENDARY,' in all caps, a self-fulfilling prophecy for a young man who took a legendary draft day slide, even as he appeared in Gatorade commercials during the telecast.
The story also featured a polarizing advisor in Papa Deion Sanders, who is referred to mostly by his 'Coach Prime' pseudonym, which also serves as his X handle. The former two-sport athlete, who was once scolded at home plate by White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk for not running out a pop-up, gave his son the genes to succeed in sports and the marketing know-how to make 'Shedeur' into a household name.
But even Coach Prime couldn't force NFL GMs to buy into his son's manufactured hype, sparking anger among the star's many social media followers and his many media friends at ESPN and other outlets.
Naturally, the long, drawn-out story that began Thursday and bled into Saturday was fueled by Grade-A level outrage from media blowtorches like ESPN's Stephen A. Smith and Mel Kiper Jr., the latter of whom ripped NFL executives as 'clueless' for ignoring his clickbait mock draft that had Sanders as the best quarterback available.
Hell hath no fury like a Mel Kiper Jr. scorned.
The story even had political overtones, thanks to a social media post on Sanders' slide from our stable genius president, who touted Sanders' 'phenomenal genes' and asked: 'What is wrong with NFL owners, are they STUPID?' On Monday, the presidential propagandist/spokesperson was asked by Fox News whether Donald Trump deserved 'credit' for Sanders finally being drafted. 'All I will say is the president put out a statement and a few rounds later, he was drafted,' Karoline Leavitt said. 'So I think the facts speak for themselves on that one.'
It should be noted that as owner of the USFL's New Jersey Generals, Trump once signed Browns quarterback Brian Sipe and later gave college quarterback Doug Flutie one of the richest contracts in sports at the time. Those facts also speak for themselves.
My favorite part of the nonstop Sanders coverage came late in the first round when the topic of the QB not being drafted cropped up again.
ESPN analyst Nick Saban criticized the topic, saying there was too much emphasis being placed on Sanders, inadvertently feeding into the narrative his network had helped create. Saban, by the way, co-stars with Coach Prime in those Aflac commercials when he isn't starring in his own VRBO commercials, so his empathy might have been for an audience of two — Shedeur and Coach Prime.
Another memorable moment occurred when ESPN's Dan Orlovsky showed a highlight reel of what he called 'non-dynamic athleticism' by Sanders in a series of bad sacks. That segment led to someone with 490 followers tweeting the clip and adding that Orlovsky had 'turned into a hater.' Coach Prime promptly retweeted that post and added his approval: 'Yes he did! Wow.'
Elon Musk's X platform was a prime-time player in this whole timeline. One February post on Sanders' X account might have been an unintentional warning sign to NFL teams who were considering drafting him. Sanders re-posted a post showing a list of the all-time career completion percentage leaders in college and added the word 'LEGENDARY,' as he often does.
Sanders, of course, was tops on the list with a 71.8% in two seasons at Colorado, followed by Colt Brennan, Colt McCoy and Kellen Moore. Also in the top 10 were Will Rogers (7th) and Case Keenum (9th). At the very worst, Sanders should get one of those commercials where a career backup quarterback is called upon by an exasperated spouse to replace their better half on some ordinary household task.
Sanders now begins his professional career as the proverbial athlete who will 'PROVE MY DOUBTERS WRONG.' Being snubbed is a good thing for some, but not so much for others, including former Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel, who coincidentally was also Kiper's top-ranked quarterback in his 2014 mock draft. Manziel dropped to No. 22 in the first round and turned out to be a first-round bust.
Kiper later admitted to SB Nation: 'I had no idea what Johnny Manziel would be. He was one of those guys you roll the dice. I had no clue.'
Would that make Kiper clueless?
NFL executives aren't afforded the luxury of 'rolling the dice' on someone they're not sure can last at quarterback, and every team but Cleveland seemed to agree. If Sanders makes the Browns, he'll no doubt be the most talked-about backup, perhaps even attaining Aaron Rodgers-like status for media attention.
Every poor throw by the Browns starter will send TV cameras to the sidelines to see if Sanders is stretching and every social media follower will be looking at his dad's tweets.
How many NFL executives considered Sanders' availability after the first round and wondered whether picking the famous son of a famously controversial player was worth seeing future critical tweets from Coach Prime? When Coach Prime tweets, it echoes through the sports media world and gets sucked into the hot take-industrial complex. It's the kind of off-the-field distraction no team wants.
Things got so crazy that Sanders' draft day plight was even compared to that of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback turned social justice warrior Colin Kaepernick, whose NFL career ended when no team would sign him after his stance on police brutality and racial injustice. The collusion lawsuit against the NFL filed by Kaepernick and Eric Reid was eventually settled out of court.
When Sanders' draft slide continued, ESPN's Smith tweeted that someone texted him: 'This is a bad look for the NFL. This feels like Kaepernick-level collusion.'
The situations of Kaepernick and Sanders are as different as night and day. Kaepernick's stand — kneeling during the national anthem before games — ignited a national debate. Sanders' stand — allegedly not cooperating with NFL teams' pre-draft needs — was purely an ego-driven exercise that potentially cost him millions and maybe a roster spot.
Either way, this is a saga that's only just beginning. Hit or miss, Shedeur Sanders will be trending for quite a while.
A rubbernecking nation can't turn away.