NFC executive expands on how Browns' Shedeur Sanders bombed pre-draft process

It's no secret that Shedeur Sanders' alleged handling of the predraft process, coupled with questions about his athletic traits, caused him to fall to the fifth round of the 2025 draft before the Cleveland Browns grabbed him at pick No. 144. 

For a lengthy piece published on Thursday by Jarrett Bell of USA Today, one executive from an unnamed NFC team expanded on how Sanders turned some clubs off leading up to the draft. 

"[The executive] said Sanders refused to interview with his team, which has an established quarterback in his prime," Bell wrote. "He said that in turning down the interview at the combine, Sanders told one of his team’s scouts: 'You’ve already got a quarterback and you’re not picking in the top 5.'"

On Wednesday, ESPN's Jeremy Fowler revealed that "Sanders openly acknowledged during the predraft process that he didn't hit it off with" coaches from the New York Giants. A previous story claimed that Sanders essentially bombed a visit with Giants head coach Brian Daboll.

The Giants traded back into the first round to take Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart at pick No. 25.

Meanwhile, one "high-level executive from another team" told Bell that things said by Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, Shedeur's father, "weighed on people’s minds" before and during the draft. Former NFL player/executive and current ESPN analyst Louis Riddick hinted in April that Deion didn't want Shedeur to end up with the Giants, Browns or Tennessee Titans. 

The Titans made Miami quarterback Cam Ward the draft's first pick.

"It’s never strictly football," one high-ranking decision-maker for an NFL club "whose team was clearly in the market to draft a quarterback" told Bell about Shedeur Sanders' fall to the draft's fifth round. "...We liked Shedeur. But you can’t separate the other stuff from the physical abilities."

That said, one "high-ranking executive from an AFC team that was not in the market to draft a quarterback" told Bell that his club had Sanders rated as the second-best signal-caller in this year's class behind only Ward. ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. ranked Sanders as the draft's top quarterback. 

History shows that a fifth-round pick will likely become little more than a backup at the highest level. If nothing else, Sanders should receive plenty of opportunities to prove doubters and 31 NFL teams wrong while developing with a franchise that hasn't had a long-term QB1 since it returned to the league in 1999.