Shedeur Sanders’ wait to discover his NFL destination lasted a little longer than many onlookers had predicted. Two days longer, in fact.
Once considered a potential No. 1 overall pick, Sanders slipped from the first round all the way down to the 144th selectionin round five of the 2025 NFL Draft. There were some question marks over his ability to perform in the NFL and reports of poor interviews with interested teams, but his dramatic slide was still shocking.
Less shocked was Robert Griffin III, who spent nine years in the league as a quarterback from 2012 to 2020. Speaking on his podcast Outta Pocket With RGIII he claimed that it was an pointed attack on Shedeur’s father, Deion Sanders.
“Shedeur Sanders should not have dropped out of the first three rounds of the NFL draft. He dropped out of the first three rounds of the NFL Draft because it’s 100% personal,” Griffin said. “NFL GMs, scouts, and the NFL at large are trying to teach Deion Sanders and Shedeur Sanders a lesson.
“A lesson that they didn’t teach the Mannings when Eli said he wasn’t going to play in San Diego, a lesson that they did not teach Andrew Luck and his family when he was the perennial No. 1 draft pick from the time he was a freshman in college, a lesson that they did not teach Baker Mayfield when he came out of Oklahoma, and a message that they did not teach Joe Burrow when he came out of LSU.”
He continued: “So what do I mean by all of that? What I mean is that all of these guys had the confidence, many of them had the bravado that is similar to what Shedeur Sanders has. But none of them were punished in the way he’s been punished.”
For his part, the younger Sanders has seemed unfazed by the prolonged wait and extended discussion about his draft fate. Throughout the process he has insisted that he is willing to bide his time and told reporters that “nothing really affected” him.
Sanders said: “I’m favored, I’m blessed. Besides that, it’s not really anything that changed. The love of the game is still the love of the game. When you get on the field, there wasn’t too much negativity being said. I know I gotta clean up some things in my game for me to be at my best, but that’s what I take each offseason one at a time and fix it.”
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