Shedeur Sanders Treated Better Than Cowboys' Tyron Smith

FRISCO - Jackie Robinson endured racist taunts and physical attacks, even from his own baseball teammates. Tyron Smith played 13 seasons, and for a decade was the best player at his position in the NFL.

Robinson had his day Tuesday, when every player in Major League Baseball wore his No. 42 to commemorate his transcendent career. Smith gets his flowers Wednesday, when he will retire from the Dallas Cowboys as one of the greatest players in franchise history.

And then there is Shedeur Sanders.

To get his uniform number retired at Colorado University, he merely had to have one of mankind's all-time style-over-substance fathers. As quarterback of the Buffaloes for two seasons, Deion's son went 13-12, failed to win a bowl game (blown out by BYU in the Alamo Bowl), and finished a distant eighth place in Heisman Trophy voting.

For that modest contribution, Shedeur - along with Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter - is getting his No. 2 retired this weekend at Colorado's Spring Game. Consider it Deion's blowhard version of a participation trophy.

This should come as no surprise, orchestrated by one of the all-time "me" marketers in Deion. But it's also an insult to the spirit of retired numbers in general, and to the Colorado football program in specific. The Buffs have been playing football for 135 years and retired a total of four numbers. Now they retire two more in a single season.

Raised by Deion, it was right on brand for Shedeur to have worn a silver "LEGENDARY" necklace before winning, well, anything.

To be fair, Hunter and Sanders broke individual records and yanked the school back onto the college football map in their two seasons. But retired jerseys? Only four months after their final game?

To put the preposterousness in perspective, quick, who led Colorado to its only National Championship and what number did he wear? Exactly. In three seasons Darian Hagan never lost a conference game, was a Heisman finalist and led the Buffs to an 11-1-1 record and the championship in 1990.

Neither he - nor anyone from that team - has a number retired at CU's Folsom Field. For that matter, no one outside Boulder remembers that he wore No. 3.

Rashaan Salaam led the Buffs to an 11-1 record, No. 3 ranking and won the Heisman in 1994, but didn't have his number retired until after his death in 2017.

Shedeur's best resume bullet point: Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year. His Buffs were ranked 25th in the final poll of the 2024 season.

Michael Jones, a captain of Colorado's 1989 team, is leading the blowback on social media.

"It's the most flagrant disrespect to the true legends who built CU football from the ground up," he said. "It's an INJUSTICE masquerading as celebration."

But considering Deion's black belt in self-promotion, the only shocking aspect of this farce is that somehow his son, Shiloh, isn't also having his number retired or that Shedeur isn't also getting a parade or perhaps a key to the city.

Maybe Deion was too busy sitting for the sculpting of his statue.