NFL Hall-of-Famer Adds Fuel to Fire of Shedeur Sanders Controversy
The Cleveland Browns knew what they were getting into when they traded back into the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft to pick Colorado Buffaloes star Shedeur Sanders. He came into the night with most analysts grading him a second or third-round prospect at worst based on his collegiate merits. However, between the immense extracurriculars that would come with him, including his father, Deion Sanders, and some rumored poor pre-draft interviews, his stock tanked.
Practically no one predicted that he'd end up being available at No. 144, where the Browns ended his slide. Cleveland didn't, or else they probably wouldn't have drafted another quarterback just 50 picks earlier in Oregon's Dillon Gabriel. Since then, the two rookies' positional battle with Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett has been the NFL's premier story of training camp and the preseason.
Sanders has mostly kept his head down and avoided any unnecessary drama since getting drafted. The same can't be said of his supporters. Some have surmised that the Browns never gave him a real opportunity to win the QB1 gig, with him stuck playing with the third-team offense in practice and remaining at fourth in the rotation despite a remarkable performance in his preseason start against the Carolina Panthers.
Eric Dickerson claims that the NFL told teams not to draft Shedeur Sanders
Shedeur Sanders can't seem to dodge controversy, even when he's going out of his way to avoid it. Following his divisive freefall in the 2025 NFL Draft, the conspiracies mostly died once he started training camp with the Cleveland Browns. They've since been reignited with Joe Flacco getting named the Week 1 starter, with Sanders remaining at QB4 despite his impressive performances.
Hall-of-Fame running back Eric Dickerson recently poured gasoline on the fire. In an appearance on the Roggin and Rodney Show, he stated that the league informed teams not to draft Sanders:
"I tell you this much, what I heard from someone that’s in the NFL, that the NFL told [teams] don’t draft him, do not draft him. We’re going to make an example out of him. And this came from a very good source, a very good source."
"I won’t say who — somebody called the Cleveland Browns and said, ‘Don’t do that, draft him.' Because they weren’t going to draft him, either. . . .They were forced into drafting him, because somebody made a call to them."
What Dickerson says implies one of two things. Either there were competing voices in the NFL pulling the strings on Shedeur Sanders' career, or the league, and possibly Commissioner Roger Goodell, changed its mind on making an example out of Sanders halfway through the process.
