In what can now be accurately described as a shocking slide — arguably the most stunning in NFL history — Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders went unselected through the second and third rounds of the NFL Draft on Friday. He will now wait to see if his name is called Saturday, the final day of the draft, which encompasses rounds four through seven.
Even among Sanders’ critics, his fall through the first 102 picks in the draft has been stunning. One former NFL general manager who scouted Sanders in the 2023 and 2024 college football seasons — and who had historically been lukewarm in his assessments — expressed surprise that Sanders will be available when the fourth round opens.
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“I’m shocked it’s this bad,” he said. “I thought he was a [second- to third-round grade] in reality, but this seems personal.”
As it stands, Sanders has been bypassed multiple times by several franchises with some level of pressing quarterback need, including the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, Las Vegas Raiders, New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers. After three rounds, five quarterbacks have now been chosen in front of him: Miami’s Cam Ward to the Tennessee Titans, Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart to the Giants, Louisville’s Tyler Shough to the Saints, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe to the Seattle Seahawks and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel to the Browns.
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The situation underscores a rocky start to the beginning of the draft itself for Sanders, which was preceded by an NFL Network report that quoted multiple anonymous league sources who hammered Sanders with sharp criticism over his play and pre-draft interviews. While the anonymous critiques were not the first for Sanders in this process, the nature of some of the comments — including calling him “entitled” and “not very good” as a player — drew a spate of negative reactions inside and outside of league circles.
After the conclusion of the first round, Sanders spoke to those in attendance at his draft watch site in Texas. In a video posted to Instagram by his father, Deion, he framed the moment “fuel to the fire.”
“We all didn’t expect this, of course, but I feel like with God, anything’s possible, everything’s possible, and I feel like this didn’t happen for no reason,” Sanders said. “All this is of course is fuel to the fire. Under no circumstance — we all know this shouldn’t have happened, but we understand we’re on to bigger and better things. If tomorrow’s the day, we’re going to be happy regardless.”
At the conclusion of Friday’s setback, Sanders’ brother Shilo posted a video on social media of Shedeur telling viewers, “We’re here in good spirits, of course. God don’t make mistakes. I got faith in God no matter what. Whatever it is.”
Now, with Sanders having fallen through three rounds, there appears to be a growing acceptance among talent evaluators that his fall does have at least some connection to some coaches and executives who were rubbed the wrong way by his personality, some of his interviews, and his skipping essentially the entire evaluation process until throwing at Colorado’s pro day in early April and having one private workout with the Giants. At this stage, it’s a combination of factors that can be quantified and some that likely can’t — like the fact that his father has always been his head coach at high levels of football.
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The fall is such that it’s not just one autopsy to understand why — it’s one autopsy per team that had a chance to select him and decided against it. Particularly the clubs that selected players at quarterback in the first three rounds (the Titans, Giants, Browns and Saints) and the one that didn’t (the Steelers).
Now the intrigue will be focused on how this resolves itself with what one executive termed “the traveling circus” getting larger as Sanders has fallen through the rounds. It was a reality that hit a peak on Friday before the start of the second round, when President Donald Trump posted a message on social media ripping NFL teams for not drafting Sanders in the first round. Meanwhile, some media members with titanic social followings on their accounts began posting biting criticism of Sanders’ slide, with one even going as far as to suggest it was a situation similar to the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick.
All of this now carries over to Saturday and the final four rounds of the draft, with one key twist: There are now even fewer teams with significant quarterback need, now that five franchises have already selected a player at the position. All of which means that Sanders’ destination may eventually be a team that doesn’t need a quarterback at all, but simply can’t pass on his talent as his selection point continues to plummet.
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