After the Pittsburgh Steelers passed on what seemed like their selection at 21st overall in Shedeur Sanders, it seemed obvious that some other team would be going after him early on.
But, that did not happen. He fell all the way to the Steelers rivals in the Cleveland Browns in the 5th round, being selected 144th overall.
The Steelers themselves passed on the quarterback with their selections in the first, third and fourth rounds, signaling that something might have gone wrong in the draft process.
One person who has caught on to the possibility that Sanders was misevaluated and is unlikely to have a strong NFL career is former Steelers running back Merill Hoge. Hoge, who played for the team from 1987 to 1993, was a former 10th round pick and former ESPN analyst.
On an appearance on WDVE, Hoge spoke about the reasons why he believed Sanders was set to underperform.
“That’s the skill set you’re looking for,” Hoge said. “He ain’t even close, he ain’t even in the ballpark. … There’s some toughness to him I like, but how he moves, he ain’t going to put fear in anybody.”
Hoge would then go on to diss his play at the collegiate level and how it would not translate to the next level.
“Nobody threw more bubble screens than Shedeur Sanders when it mattered,” Hoge said. “In the college environment, it can be hard to translate a kid to where he’s going to play, so you have to look deeper into it, you have to find things that simulate the NFL. You’re not going to throw 50% of your bubble screens and survive in the NFL, you can do that in college — they’ll sit there and say their offensive line was bad and so that’s why we did those type of things — but if your quarterback is good, you can run everything. You don’t just have to run a bubble screen.”
Since rookie camps have yet to begin, it is impossible to know if Hoge is correct at this point. He does, however, make strong points about Sanders' collegiate career that cannot be ignored.
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