Browns' Shedeur Sanders Reveals Bold Truth About Deion Sanders After Draft Slide

A month after the 2025 NFL Draft, fans and analysts across the country are still scratching their heads, wondering how Shedeur Sanders lasted until the fifth round. Sanders was far from a perfect prospect. Draft experts didn't have him graded as the best quarterback in the class, and some had several field generals ahead of him on their big boards. That said, nary a soul had him lasting until Day 3.

Following his meteoric crash into the fifth round, the Cleveland Browns elected to end his slide, trading up to the 144th pick with the Seattle Seahawks in order to draft Sanders. Despite already taking a quarterback in the third round, Oregon's Dillon Gabriel, Cleveland clearly saw the chance to grab Shedeur in Round 5 was too good an opportunity to pass up.

While he waiting for his name to be called, plenty of speculation came out theorizing what led to his draft stock plummeting. By the time the dust settled, the common belief was that Shedeur's overconfidence and poor handling of the pre-draft process, including his choice not to participate at the combine and some poor interviews, turned scouts and franchises off of him, despite a fair amount of evident talent.

Recently, Sanders himself revealed that he may believe that his father, Deion Sanders, or at least other people's perception of his father, could have contributed to his draft dive:

"They don't care about other people's opinion of you. They go based off their own — 99% of hatred [directed at me] is toward pops. And then I'm just his son. But [the kids] didn't grow up in an era to where they watched him play. It's just the older generation that does it to me rather than the younger people."

It wouldn't be the first time that his connection to his father may have led to his dismay. As much weight as the name "Deion Sanders" carries in NFL circles, it's also brought a lot of unkind attention to Shedeur, Deion's other sons, the Colorado football program, and others caught up in Deion's spotlight.