Shedeur Sanders, Cleveland Browns
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Shedeur Sanders at Browns minicamp.
Shedeur Sanders’ fall in the 2025 NFL draft was one of the more shocking events in the draft’s history. Sanders was ranked as high as second on most draft boards, but fell to the fifth round. The Cleveland Browns eventually drafted him, allowing him to potentially be a starter in the next year or two. For Sanders, it likely worked out the best regarding the team he’s on.
However, reports have started to surface about why he fell the way he did. According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, the Browns and other teams were a bit worried about his pre-draft visits.
“I think Shedeur—and this isn’t any fault of his own—had a lot more ground to cover than Dillon Gabriel,”Breer said, per PFSN. “He had a bigger learning curve than Dillon Gabriel. There were teams that were stunned by how little Shedeur knew relative to what they thought. He was pretty far behind.”
NFL Teams Had Concerns Over Shedeur Sanders
Breer has spoken about the young Cleveland Browns quarterback recently, having much more to say about this situation beyond his most recent comments. When reporting, Breer admitted that the Browns and other teams had some question marks about him. He later added that Sanders handled the draft prospect as if he were a top-five pick lock, which wasn’t the case.
“He handled the process like he was a top-five (pick) lock,”Breer said, per NBC Sports.
“All these teams that either heard the bad stories from the other teams or that (he) refused to meet with or that had a bad experience with (him) personally … now the amount of teams that are willing to (draft him) has narrowed,” Breer said of teams passing on Sanders in the later rounds.
Did NFL Teams Hold Something Against Browns’ Shedeur Sanders
There’s a lot to consider when thinking about the Cleveland Browns quarterback. In his defense, Sanders isn’t exactly loved around the league.
Whether that be due to his father or some of his flashiness, NFL teams certainly held something against him.
There was a lot more that went into this than a few bad interviews, as Sanders was one of the better quarterbacks in the country a season ago in college. At Colorado, he threw for 3,320 yards, 27 touchdowns, and three interceptions in his junior year.
In his senior season, he impressed again, throwing for 4,134 yards, 37 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions.
However, according to Breer, Sanders was far behind in the process, which likely worried teams.
The Browns weren’t too scared about it to take him in the fifth round, but that’s likely why they didn’t even consider him with the second overall pick, trading it to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“They give players an install, and there are mistakes intentionally put in the install,” Breer said. “He didn’t catch them and got called on it, and it didn’t go well after that. … He was pissed that they did that to him.”