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Shedeur Sanders’ draft slide remained the topic of conversation a week after the Cleveland Browns selected the quarterback in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
The aftermath has had every current and former player and pundit trying to figure out why a player like Sanders, who had been projected to be one of the first players off the board, had managed to fall all the way down to No. 144.
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Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2) jogs onto the field during the game against the Kansas Jayhawks at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. (Nick Tre. Smith-Imagn Images)
ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller shed some light on the former Colorado Buffaloes star’s fall. He pointed to how Sanders and his camp had handled the entire draft process.
“I didn’t think that they handled the process well,” he told Awful Announcing. “And that’s not just hindsight. I took a lot of heat for saying on ‘NFL Live,’ right before the NFL Scouting Combine, that he was making a mistake.
“He should be throwing at the NFL Scouting Combine. He should have worked out at the East-West Shrine Game that he accepted an invite to. The NFL has this new rule that if you accept an invite to an All-Star Game, you have to participate. And he didn’t. So, I said on TV that they were not handling the process well. And I thought it would hurt him. People were not happy with me.”
Miller still believed Sanders was “overrated as a player.”
Quarterback Shedeur Sanders, #2 of the Colorado Buffaloes, throws a pass during the first half of the NCAAF game against the Arizona State Sun Devils at Mountain America Stadium on October 7, 2023, in Tempe, Arizona. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
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“I had a lot of messages. I had a lot of responses to the video ESPN put out saying that. So I do think … was he overrated as a player? Yes, based on the talents and the tools he has as a player, he was not a top two or three player in this draft class,” he said. “But then you get to the process part of it. And the NFL will humble anyone.
“How the NFL views you and evaluates you, they will humble every player. So I think for the Sanders camp, they had this perception of Shedeur as a lock two or three draft pick. And they approached the process that way. There was never anyone from the outside that could get through to him and say, ‘Wait a second, he’s not guaranteed to be a two or three draft pick.’ And the fact that you are approaching the process that way is hurting him.”
Sanders will have the ability to prove everyone wrong with the Browns.
A graphic announcing Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders’ selection by the Cleveland Browns with the 144th overall pick in the Draft Theater during the third day of the 2025 NFL Draft at Lambeau Field on April 25, 2025. (Tork Mason/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
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He will compete for a starting job against Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel. Deshaun Watson is likely to miss the entire 2025 season after re-rupturing his Achilles in the offseason.
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