Shedeur Sanders, Colorado reporter respond to predraft takedowns of QB

Multiple articles published in the days leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft featured anonymous coaches and league executives bashing Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders and suggesting he never should have been viewed as a first-round talent. 

Sanders did his best to tune out such noise.

"I truly don’t have any space for negativity, so it doesn’t play a factor in my life at all," Sanders told Rohan Nadkarni of NBC News. "I understand the easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative instead of positive. I truly don’t care what people have to say." 

Sanders' draft stock allegedly began to slide after it was reported in early March that he "hit the wrong notes" in interviews with some teams during the NFL Scouting Combine. More recently, an unnamed "longtime NFL assistant coach" said that he felt Sanders is "entitled" and was part of "the worst formal interview I've ever been in in my life." 

Sean Keeler covered Sanders' Colorado tenure for The Denver Post. During a Wednesday appearance on Pittsburgh sports radio station 93.7 The Fan, Keeler hit back at those who attacked Sanders' character during the predraft process. 

"I don't know a single Colorado teammate, publicly or privately, that doesn't like him," Keeler said, per Jake Brockhoff of Steelers Depot. "Seriously. Like, that's the thing I think that is most unfairly lobbed at Shedeur by people who haven't covered him yet or haven't met him yet. They just see the Maybach and the commercials and the dad and the family, and they go, 'Oh, I'm just getting Deion, too. I think the hunger to win is real."

That's all well and good, but the fact remains that numerous coaches and analysts believe Sanders lacks the elite physical traits needed for a quarterback to excel at the highest level. One "executive with an NFL team" told ESPN's Jordan Raanan he thinks Sanders will be little more than "an average NFL starting quarterback." Meanwhile, retired player and current NFL analyst Merril Hoge is convinced Sanders is "gonna be an epic failure" and will set an organization back "another two or three years."

Regardless of where he ends up, Sanders could receive opportunities to silence his critics as soon as this coming September.