There are a lot of media feuds out there, and many of them never see the principals interact beyond on-air or social media comments. The long-running grievance between current Colorado Buffaloes’ head coach Deion Sanders and former NFL DB Asante Samuel started that way with years of back-and-forth chirping. But Sanders appeared on Samuel’s Bleav Say What Needs To Be Said podcast (in an episode released early Sunday morning), and the two discussed where this feud started:
Coach Prime & Asante Address The Issue 💯
Link in bio pic.twitter.com/Q20KbfOMWt
— Asante Samuel (@pick_six22) May 31, 2025
In that clip, Sanders discusses how he believes this started with a ranking of NFL cornerbacks he was asked to give while he was working at NFL Network. He says “I hate to do that,” and adds he thinks that was the only time he did that, but says he ranked Samuel as “the top off-ball corner in the game” rather than a top lockdown corner because of the way he played. Samuel then discusses how his approach came from “playing the quarterback” rather than the receiver, and sticking on the right side of the receiver where a throw from a right-handed quarterback would likely come rather than being as close to the target as a different coverage philosophy might indicate.
The silly thing with this feud in the first place is that both have their points, and that they don’t have to contradict each other. Sanders was and is right that Samuel played a different style than many other top corners of the time, which Samuel even discusses here. Samuel was and is right that his style was effective for him, especially in terms of interceptions. Indeed, as he’s often pointed out during this long-running feud, he recorded similar numbers of interceptions to Sanders in fewer games:
Here is your yearly reminder. Now let’s hear the excuses #pick6 #tstepking pic.twitter.com/G0ilnoSlD0
— Asante Samuel (@pick_six22) March 21, 2025
But that doesn’t override Sanders’ initial comments about the way Samuel played and how it differed from other corners. And there are multiple effective styles of playing defensive back, and they show up differently statistically; a cornerback more tightly glued to a receiver might record fewer interceptions and perhaps even fewer passes defensed (from the ball not even being thrown to a covered receiver), but there’s more potential for both risk (missed picks that leads to big offensive plays) and reward (game-changing turnovers) from a strategy emphasizing being further off the ball. And the differences between Samuel and Sanders’ strategies go beyond that, as shown in a March argument they had on social media about defensive back techniques.
Defensive back statistics also come with a huge amount of further outside variables. How good were the quarterbacks and receivers the player was facing? What were those offenses looking to do through the air, and how well did they prevent that? How good were their own teammates in the secondary? How much pressure was their pass rush generating? Given all of that, those comparisons (and rankings in particular) are hard to make, and it’s understandable why Sanders mentions he didn’t like offering rankings, especially considering the reaction this one generated.
Still, the actual divide here was a little more notable and detailed than some other ones Samuel has gotten into, including his 2023 blaming of the “New York Media” for the recognition given to Darrelle Revis and Sauce Gardner. And it’s refreshing to hear him and Sanders have a candid live conversation about it, allowing each other to express their points; that’s a nice change from social media sniping (which has become a regular thing from some ex-NFLers lately).
Sanders’ interview with Samuel (the full episode can be found here) was notable on other fronts, too, including for his comments about his son Shedeur’s draft fall. And that does serve as a sign of some of the potential value of player- or former player-hosted podcasts; active sports figures are sometimes much more candid with those with sports backgrounds they relate to than they are with those media members who didn’t play at a high level, and Sanders certainly was here. So this podcast was notable for more than just its (potential) resolution to the Samuel-Sanders feud.