The Shedeur Sanders draft saga has transcended into lore in NFL history. It makes for a great topic to write investigative reports about, since there’s still so much he-said-she-said about what really happened. There were a lot of rumors being spread about him ahead of his draft, both good and bad. But according to podcast host Garrett Bush, the league might have played dirty.
“Pre-draft, Shedeur Sanders had former NFL executives, general managers, staff prepping him for the combine,” Bush said on ‘The Barbershop’ show on May 17. “I don’t think nobody told y’all that. Did you know that? They purposely seeked out people already in the industry who ain’t done the questions, they prepped him, went over everything. When you hear that he slid to the fifth round because of headphones, now you can see why that was also a lazy lie. I know the names of these individuals. Trust me. These guys are high executives.”
In the buildup to the 2025 NFL Draft, there was serious buzz about Sanders being picked early. At the same time, he was the most polarizing prospect in the league. There was a noticeable notion among fans who thought he deserved to fall out of the draft. The fact that he came with a silver spoon, being Deion Sanders’s son, irked some, while others tended to troll him because of how troubling his game could be if he didn’t have the help from star wide receiver Travis Hunter. But the final blow really was Sanders’ team interviews.
Reports surfaced about the QB attending a meeting with the New York Giants with headphones around his neck. There were other reports of a team insider saying that Sanders’ interview was the “worst.” To Sanders’ horror, what his skeptics said about him nearly came true, managing to get the call from the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round. He was the sixth quarterback selected in the draft. NBC Sports’ Chris Simms said at the time that this happened almost every draft, when “unqualified people make qualified statements.”
For comparison, Shedeur Sanders finished his collegiate career with more than 14,000 passing yards and 134 touchdowns. The sixth QB selected in this year’s draft, Taylen Green, comes to the NFL with 9,662 yards and 59 touchdowns. The outside noise played a big role in teams passing on Sanders in the 2025 draft.
“The media coverage of Shedeur Sanders has felt extremely purposeful & personal,” analyst Ryan Clarke said. “The anonymous quotes that have circulated are mostly negative. Which is strange. A young man that has never been in trouble, never involved in an off field incident, & quarterbacked two Universities to a resurgence has 0 behind-the-scenes qualities? There have been other quarterbacks with true issues that haven’t been subjected to this sort of pre-draft slander.”
Deion Sanders Opens Up on Shedeur Sanders Draft Slide
During a recent appearance on Garrett Bush’s The Barbershop podcast, Deion Sanders opened up about a variety of topics. When the conversation turned to Shedeur’s dramatic slide in the draft, Deion got candid. He emotionally unpacked the heavy toll those few days took on him. He even revealed that some want to see his son fail.
“That was the first time in my life that I couldn’t fix it. I’ve always been able to fix it, with all my kids,” Deion Sanders recalled. “But as that bulljunk was going on, I couldn’t fix it. He wanted me to fix it. And I didn’t have the power to fix it. And that hurt, because I felt like I wasn’t there for my son… So all that stuff was a lie, man.
“Now that bothers me. It didn’t bother him, but that bothered me. Because I knew where it came from. But we never, you know — we took the high road.”
Neither Shedeur nor Shilo Sanders went for an agent ahead of the draft, letting their dad do the job. It didn’t bring them much help, but the Sanders family humbly accepted the brutal result and carried on. Retaliating would have further complicated things for the brothers, as the road ahead was an avenue where Deion Sanders had no control whatsoever. Shedeur eventually held his own and went to work, becoming the QB1 for the Browns last year. But every time there’s talk about his draft slide, fans will feel compelled to put their detective hats on.
