Stephen Jackson, a former 14-season NBA veteran and 2003 NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs, is no stranger to speaking plainly on issues he cares about.
On Friday, he weighed in on the most debated fall in recent NFL Draft history.
Shedeur Sanders, the Colorado Buffaloes quarterback and son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, was projected by most analysts to go in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
He went 144th overall. The Cleveland Browns selected him in the fifth round, making him the sixth quarterback taken that weekend.
Jackson’s explanation, captured and shared on X by NFL reporter Dov Kleiman on Saturday, was anything but ambiguous.
Jackson Says Confidence, Not Football, Is Why Sanders Fell That Far
Dec 28, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) exits the field after the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Huntington Bank Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
Dec 28, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) exits the field after the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Huntington Bank Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
In the clip, Jackson pointed not to anything Sanders did on the field.
Powerful: Stephen Jackson says that Shedeur Sanders fell in the NFL draft because he is a confident black man.
“They hate to see confident n*****. When you black and you confident. They hate it.”
😳😳😳 pic.twitter.com/4HqPr2lfHs
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) February 28, 2026
“They hate to see confident n*****. When you black and you confident. They hate it.”
Jackson, who became a known civil rights voice after speaking out during the Black Lives Matter movement, has consistently used his platform to challenge racial double standards in sports.
His take on Sanders was pointed but not isolated. Before the draft, ESPN analyst Ryan Clark raised the same concern in a different way.
“It’s about the bravado he carries. It’s about the fact that he looks a certain way. It is about the fact that the color of his skin sometimes at that position can be questioned.”
Pat Ferrucci, a media professor at the University of Colorado who studies racial bias in NFL coverage, told Axios Boulder that pre-draft narratives around Sanders were layered with coded language and longstanding stereotypes tied to Black quarterbacks.
Ferrucci specifically called the recurring suggestion that Sanders needed to stay humble “condescending.”
The NFL’s Own Draft Numbers Make the Race Argument More Complicated
Dec 21, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) is introduced prior to a game against the Buffalo Bills at Huntington Bank Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
Dec 21, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) is introduced prior to a game against the Buffalo Bills at Huntington Bank Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
Not everyone shares Jackson’s reading of what happened.
One source made a direct counterargument, noting that no NFL team rated Sanders as a difference-maker at the position, and that the last three No. 1 overall picks in the draft were all Black quarterbacks.
Sanders himself acknowledged, after being drafted, that his pre-draft process could have gone better.
He skipped combine drills and declined interviews with multiple teams, including the New York Giants, where his session reportedly went poorly.
One AFC area scout told ESPN: “I did expect him to have a better spring. I heard he had some rough interviews, and the pro day was average. Surprised but not shocked [that Sanders fell to the fifth round].”
The two sides of this argument, one grounded in process failures and the other in racial scrutiny, have sat uncomfortably side by side since draft weekend last April.
Sanders enters his second NFL season still competing for the starting job in Cleveland, with the Browns holding multiple draft picks that could bring in more quarterback competition this April.
What Jackson said Friday will not close this argument. The question of how Black athletes who carry obvious confidence are evaluated inside NFL front offices was not born with Sanders. It will not end with him either. His play going forward answers the football part. The other part is a reckoning the league has not yet fully had.