Mel Kiper Jr. passionately defends Browns' Shedeur Sanders amid latest criticisms

Leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft, well-known ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. repeatedly made it known he felt Shedeur Sanders was the best overall quarterback of his draft class. Thus, it wasn't surprising when Kiper was left downright shocked that Sanders fell to the draft's fifth round before the Cleveland Browns took a flier on the former Colorado star. 

More recently, some have said that certain stats indicate Sanders was the worst starting quarterback of the 2025 NFL regular season. During an edition of ESPN's "First Draft" podcast, Kiper offered his latest passionate defense of Sanders.

Mel Kiper Jr. compares Shedeur Sanders to Josh Allen

"What the hell has he got to do? Are we going to get into this negativity again about Shedeur?" Kiper said, per Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing. "I don’t know what else the kid needs to do. Josh Allen had haters in year three, so if Josh Allen has haters in year two and three of his career, there’s no way Shedeur can avoid it."

Kiper is somewhat right in that some viewed Baker Mayfield and not Allen as the top quarterback drafted in 2018 when that season wrapped up. Mayfield was even named the Pro Football Writers of America Rookie of the Year for that campaign. 

"Everything about Shedeur Sanders screams he’s the quarterback," Kiper continued. "But if people are going to be negative in April, they’re going to be negative now." 

Sanders' stats are hardly flattering. Pro Football Reference shows he finished the regular season ranked last in the NFL among qualified players with a 19.0 adjusted QBR, a 68.1 passer rating and a 56.6 percent completion percentage. That said, he did tally three wins across seven starts. 

Mel Kiper Jr. remains impressed by Shedeur Sanders

Much was made throughout the fall about the fact that former Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski reserved first-team practice reps for fellow rookie signal-caller Dillon Gabriel up until after Week 11. Kiper suggested Sanders made the best of a difficult situation. 

"Really, when you look at what Shedeur did this year, not having any training camp, never with the ones, defense offense, be thrown out there, playing in brutal weather conditions – not in domes in great weather – in brutal weather conditions," Kiper added. "If you’re going to sit there and tell me you weren’t impressed with the rookie year Shedeur Sanders [had], I’m going to say you weren’t watching the same game I was."

It's unknown if a new coaching staff will have Sanders compete with veteran Deshaun Watson for the starting job later this year. Kiper seems convinced those to-be-hired coaches would do well to let Sanders serve as Cleveland's QB1 from the start of springtime workouts through Week 1 of the 2026 campaign.