Former Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders is one of the biggest stories of the 2025 NFL Draft, and much of the discourse over the last few weeks — and months — has been concerning where he will be drafted.
Scouts are clearly mixed on Sanders, as highlighted by one anonymous scout telling NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero that Sanders had “the worst formal interview I’ve ever been in in my life.” Generally, he’s been projected as the second quarterback to be drafted, but at the end of the 2024-25 college football season it looked like he would be in the top five or top 10, and now he could be out of the first round entirely.
Advertisement
Oddsmakers certainly aren’t sure where he’ll be drafted, either, which is part of the reason they hate booking the NFL Draft.
Sanders fell out of the first round entirely in Yahoo Sports’ final mock draft, with Cam Ward (No. 1), Jaxson Dart (No. 9) and Jalen Milroe (No. 21) going before him.
Sanders opened as the +300 favorite to be drafted first at BetMGM when the market opened right after the 2024 NFL Draft , but those odds lengthened as the draft process played out — and Cam Ward is now the overwhelming favorite to go No. 1 overall to the Tennessee Titans in Thursday’s Round 1.
Circa Sports in Nevada opened Sanders’ positional over/under at 8.5 last week, with the over (Sanders drafted after pick No. 8) at -380 and the under at +260. The sportsbook closed the market Wednesday — Nevada requires NFL Draft markets to be closed 24 hours before the first pick — with Sanders still at 8.5 but with the over at -1100.
Advertisement
“One-way action on the over,” Jeff Benson, director of sportsbook operations at Circa Sports, told Yahoo Sports via direct message on X.
On Wednesday, as information came out that the New Orleans Saints may not have interest in Sanders at No. 9, his over/under was on the move at sportsbooks. (BetMGM doesn’t offer player positional over/unders.)
ESPN Bet moved Sanders’ over/under from 8.5 all the way to 21.5, with the under at -140. The Pittsburgh Steelers have the 21st pick and have Mason Rudolph as their current starting QB.
“Oddsmaking around the draft is more art than science, compared to setting lines for matchups where you have performance data on two teams,” Adrian Horton, director, North American sports trading at ESPN Bet, told Yahoo Sports via email. “We’re following all draft news closely, monitoring betting activity, and moving markets in line with that. With reports of the Saints no longer interested in Sanders at 9, we moved his line to the next likely pocket of teams with a need at quarterback.”
Advertisement
ESPN Bet reported that 36.2% of bets and 72.7% of handle were on the over at 8.5, and since the move to 21.5 that 89.2% of bets and 97.1% of handle have been on the under.
DraftKings Sportsbook moved Sanders’ over/under to 14.5 (over -400) on Wednesday, while FanDuel also moved it all the way to 21.5 (under -168).
The 2025 NFL Draft begins 8 p.m. ET Thursday in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Read the full article here