The 2025 NFL Draft is always going to be remembered for Shedeur Sanders dropping from a potential No. 1 pick to a guy who was taken in the fifth round.
The league is now dealing with new calls of racism, and Sanders is being compared to Colin Kaepernick.
This is probably going to be a surprise to anyone familiar with my work, but I don’t see it that way. What happened to Sanders wasn’t primarily about the fear of a confident, bold, young Black man. And it surely didn’t have anything to do with Kaepernick’s situation.
It seems to me that front office executives around the league were worried about Sanders’ ability to overcome adversity and lead his teammates.
Frankly, he comes off as an entitled, me-first guy in the ultimate team sport — a huge red flag for a quarterback if ever there was one.
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As for the comparison to Kaepernick, there isn’t one.
Kaepernick lost his career fighting police brutality against Black people; meanwhile, Sanders slid down the draft board over concerns that he can’t carry a franchise.
If you want to compare Sanders to anybody, compare him to Johnny Manziel.
Let’s not dismiss those who wonder about the effect of race here. The NFL certainly has had its share of problems on that front.
It wasn’t that long ago that Black players weren’t allowed to play quarterback. In a more recent era, the league had such a horrible record of hiring Black coaches that league officials had to adopt rules aimed at getting qualified candidates an opportunity to simply interview for available jobs. And of course, Kaepernick was “whiteballed” for kneeling during the national anthem.
As a Black man, I’ve criticized the NFL over all of that and more, hoping to create more opportunities for qualified minority candidates.
But this Sanders situation isn’t that serious. (Plus, there are so many Black quarterbacks these days that no one bothers to count them anymore. I covered a game a few years ago with four Black quarterbacks Kyler Murray, Brett Hundley, Russell Wilson and Geno Smith. To my father or grandfather’s generation, that sentence would have been pure fiction.)
To me, this is just about a young guy who needs to prove himself and earn trust.
If it were purely about race, Cam Ward, who is Black, wouldn’t have been taken with the first pick in this year’s draft.
If it were purely about the perceptions that Sanders is an arrogant and cocky Black man who needs to be humbled, then Caleb Williams, who is every bit as bold, confident and Black as Sanders, wouldn’t have been taken first last year.
Sanders’ slide has more to do with Sanders than the color of his skin.
Sanders didn’t go to a powerhouse program. He went to Colorado. And he didn’t win so much as a conference championship or a bowl game when he was there.
He could be a star on the field, but he hasn’t proved it.
Sanders clearly is a marketing genius. He’s been the most popular player in college football for the last two years.
But in the NFL, that sort of attention puts a target on your back.
If you listen hard enough, you can almost hear the veterans taunting, “Show me what you’ve got, rookie.”
And maybe Sanders can show everyone they are wrong.
He’ll certainly have an opportunity to do so in Cleveland, where the starter Deshaun Watson, who is Black, has dealt with the double whammy of off-field drama and poor play.
We also shouldn’t worry too much about any financial hit Sanders will take by going so late in the draft. He’s already made a bunch of money in name, image and likeness deals from his time at Colorado. And he didn’t exactly struggle with poverty growing up as Deion Sanders’ son.
Anyway, if he plays well, he’ll be in a position to negotiate a massive second contract.
Here’s hoping Sanders uses the draft day snubs as fuel to motivate himself. If he does, he’ll answer the one glaring question that caused all this fuss.
I feel bad for Sanders. It’s got to be embarrassing to be at the center of this. And he certainly shouldn’t have slipped to the fifth round.
But I just don’t see racism in this case. (Anyone who knows me, knows I would call it out, loudly, if I did.) I just see a player whose hype outstrips his production.
More importantly, I see a guy who has a chance to rewrite his own story on the field and change the way we remember this draft.
Reach Moore at [email protected] or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.
