Deion Sanders and his son Shedeur Sanders have been under the scanner lately. Two of the scathing arguments against the Coach Prime-led Colorado project have been the mass exodus of student-athletes to the portal and the seemingly ignorant treatment handed out to them by Deion before kicking them off. Xavier Smith, a player who was dropped by the Buffs brought this treatment by Deion to light.
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His exposé was met with an aggressive reply from Shedeur alleging that he doesn’t remember playing with Smith because he must have been “mid at best”. Shedeur’s graceless response didn’t sit well with most netizens. However, sports analyst and podcast host Steve Kim had a different opinion.
As per Steve, almost all major college teams are releasing players in double digits. With the advent of expensive NIL remunerations, constant cutting and chopping is done to ensure players don’t get complacent. Hence what the Buffs are doing is nothing wrong. The only issue, however, lies in their communication according to him:
“A lot of teams are losing double-digit number of players – 20 to 30 to 35 and they’re bringing in the exact same amount. Look, there’s there’s a realization now that in this era if you’re going to be given a lot of NILs in the beginning, you don’t progress up that depth chart early. You’re going to be asked to either take a cut or leave…”
“I don’t I don’t know if Colorado’s doing anything that much different than anyone else except they had a coach that was much more honest about it.”
While Coach Prime’s problem is his brutal no-nonsense honesty, his son’s unchecked aggression on social media paints a bad picture overall for the project. Considering the players being dropped from the project already have sympathy from everyone, attacking them on social media is the worst a coach and a former teammate can do.
“I think where the issue with Colorado is they’re the only ones that had a coach and his sons bit*hing and getting into pi*sing contests on Twitter with exiting players. Everyone else just wishes people well and they never really mention them again. These guys are getting into Twitter spats disparaging other players I think that’s what’s made it seemingly worse.”
Shedeur’s online behaviour in particular has been under a lot of scrutiny. Many are now worried if his outburst will affect his draft prospects next year.
Will Shedeur Sanders Be The Number One Overall Pick In The 2025 Draft?
Teams today want an all-round performer in their player. Caleb Williams is the perfect example of this. He has a clean image on and off the field and he is someone who franchises can build their dynasties upon. However, Shedeur might have hampered his opportunity with his post on “X”. Steve Kim albeit is more concerned about Shedeur’s on-field skills.
As per the analyst, Sheduer’s physicality lowers his chance of being drafted number one. Comparing Sheduer with Caleb Williams, the latter is built sturdy unlike the former. Hence Kim wonders if Sanders on top of his social media outburst will manage to break into the first half of the first-round draft.
“I don’t know if Shedeur’s undrafted but I think the question is, is he going to be a first half of the first-round draft choice? In today’s game, I don’t think he’ll be the number-one pick. I don’t think physically he’s good enough. I don’t think he has that much arm talent where like it can overcome how frail he is.”
Another criticism that Kim has against Shedeur is his tendency to hold the ball a lot. The CU Budds offensive line was a mess last year but there was enough evidence for Kim to argue that the QB’s spontaneity isn’t the best. Unless there’s a massive improvement on this aspect, it’s unlikely to see Shedeur being a favorite in the draft with such a major problem.
“Also, he holds the ball a lot. I know the offensive line was not great at Colorado but I saw a lot of games where he’s hitching, he’s pumping, he’s looking and I’m like you got to get rid of that ball. I thought every quarterback that gets hit, there’s a certain amount hits that’s on the quarterback. You hold the grenade too long and it blows up in your hand.”
All said and done, it will be interesting to see how Coach Prime and Shedeur perform in the first match of their season. Only strong performances on the field can shut the naysayers.
