NFL scouts are worried Shedeur Sanders is gonna get killed. If not by opposing linebackers, then by his own teammates.
“His dad being his coach (for so long) … love it or hate it, everything he’s done has been under a microscope,” Ourlads.com analyst Dave Syvertsen told me earlier in the week. “ games where you’re throwing your teammates under the bus — that wouldn’t fly in the NFL. Especially when your dad’s not in the locker room with you.”
And therein lies the rub. Shedeur heard his name called dozens of times on Thursday night. Just not by anybody at the podium in Green Bay.
If you’re looking for a reason why a guy who just got his number retired at CU wasn’t drafted in the first round of the NFL draft, well — it’s a lot of things. It’s Coach Prime. It’s Nebraska ’23 (taking too many sacks) and Nebraska ’24 (blaming your offensive line). It’s hero ball. It’s Travis Hunter catching every ball at CU that was thrown within 15 feet of him.
But mostly, it’s the uncertainty. When I’ve asked evaluators about Shedeur, the same two questions usually got bounced back at me:
What happens when stuff hits the fan?
Is he coachable?
First one? Don’t know.
Second? Yes, with … qualifiers.
The upside of having Tom Brady on speed dial is that you’ve got the GOAT’s ear. The downside is that when you can call up Rembrandt for tips on brush strokes, why would you ever listen exclusively to your art teacher?
Shedeur watched the first round from a custom room with his “Legendary” brand emblazoned everywhere. Which, in hindsight, was probably not the best public rebuttal against all the anonymous criticism.
NFL teams want hungry and humble. The younger Sanders is hungrier than he gets credit for. We gave No. 2 grief about his jersey retirement on the heels of a 13-11 career mark. But what would, say, Steven Montez’s record have been over 24 games at CU with the same offensive line? And same skill guys? Not over .500, that’s for dang sure.
If you’re good enough, NFL teams will happily cough and look the other way, until it’s bad for business. Jon Cooper, associate general manager at the Ourlads scouting service, a straight-shooter who’s been doing this forever, told me Monday he’d given Deion Sanders’ son a second-round grade. So did Syvertsen, even though Sanders had just shattered nearly every major passing record at CU with a pocket made of paper mâché.
“I’m not a political guy, (but) it reminded me of politics, where you either love him and you have to hate the other side or you hate him and have to love the other side,” Syvertsen said of Shedeur.
“To me, it seems like, if I had to point to one thing, it’s the Nebraska loss (last fall) early in the year, where he immediately threw his offensive line under the bus. That was a huge red flag for me. And that was (one) to a lot of people. He’ll take all the love from a positive situation that you can get. And the minute he gets in a negative situation, he’ll point the finger.”
Dave’s a good egg, but I don’t know if that’s entirely true. Or fair.
Shedeur never dodged a postgame news conference while he was healthy, win or lose, over his two seasons at CU.
With independent media, he was both accountable and present. The only questions I can recall Shedeur actively dodging were mine — and that was midway through 2023, when I’d asked about former offensive coordinator Sean Lewis’ demotion. And he wasn’t a jerk about it. We moved on.
“I think we knew going in (that) he took a lot of sacks,” Cooper noted. “(And) that he had some issues if he didn’t have a clean pocket. We kind of knew that going in.”
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To put it in purely local terms, Sanders does some of the things that Russell Wilson did with the Broncos that drove Sean Payton bonkers.
At CU, third-and-25 became just another fun chance to watch Hunter pull off some kind of midair acrobatics that nobody had ever seen before. In the NFL, it’ll get your backside cut and your coach fired.
The humble thing, well — that’s not happening. Sanders might wind up taking a pay cut when he eventually signs his rookie deal. But if Jaxson Dart winds up being a better pro than Shedeur, I won’t just buy a pair of CU shorts. I’ll eat them.
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