The Cleveland Browns cruised past the Miami Dolphins 31-6 on Sunday for their second win of the season, marking their biggest victory since 2023, thanks to a strong performance from their defense and running game. But as always, all the NFL media wants to focus on is… Shedeur Sanders.
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Sanders has not sniffed the field since the Joe Flacco trade bumped him up to QB2 status a couple of weeks ago. However, last week seemed like a chance to get a look at the rookie fifth-rounder. With the Browns up 31-6 with 10 minutes left, they could have given Sanders a chance to run a couple of drives.
Instead, Gabriel stayed in, and the team simply ran out the clock. The starter finished the game 13-for-18 for 116 yards, putting forth yet another clean but uninspiring performance. A couple of days after the game, on Tuesday, Sanders posted an intriguing message on his Twitter account. The post focused on releasing his anxiety about what he can’t control into God’s hands.
“The greatest lesson I’ve learned through it all is not to worry but to lean on and trust GOD in every situation. Even when I don’t know what to do, I’ve learned that GOD will always guide me. I live stress-free because I know that, no matter what, GOD has the final say over my life,” Sanders wrote.
Shedeur and the rest of the Sanders family—especially the patriarch, Deion Sanders—have always been very open and vocal about their Christian faith. After failing to see a snap again on Sunday, one would have to think that’s the most relevant context for his words here.
The somewhat lengthy tweet was then brought up on Emmanuel Acho’s new YouTube show, SpeakEasy. And our frustration with that poor excuse for an NFL analyst only grew. Acho’s co-host brought up Sanders’ tweet, only for the former linebacker to say, “I’m not reading all that.”
You’re being paid to analyze football, and you expect people to give a hoot about your opinion when you can’t even read one simple tweet that’s being discussed on your own show?
Thankfully, Acho had James Jones there with him, and he was able to at least communicate some reasonable analysis. The Super Bowl 45 champ argued that Sanders wasn’t put in the game because seeing him make a couple of throws would not be worth the ensuing media scrutiny for head coach Kevin Stefanski.
“I think this is Shedeur just putting his hands up like, ‘It’s out of my control,'” Jones said, adding,
“[He’s] not waving the white flag. We all know he wants to play… I think this is him throwing his hands up like, ‘Man, it’s not in my hands! Ya’ll got a dude starting over me that ain’t nobody have better than me in college. You drafted him over me for some odd reason that don’t nobody know… Every single time I’ve had my opportunity to make plays in college and the pros, I’ve done that.”
And even as Jones tries to make his reasonable point, Acho attempts to paint Shedeur as someone who is “giving up” and doesn’t want to play anymore based on his message about God. He interrupted Jones to suggest Sanders is “raising the white flag.” And this is after refusing to even read the tweet in full, mind you.
Shedeur Sanders has evidently been doing all he can to impress the Browns coaching staff. He’s done well enough that they felt comfortable trading both Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco.
So at this point, he’s relying on his faith and on God to take care of things that are out of his control—like whether or not he supplants Gabriel—rather than stressing and making a big deal of it in the media. And irresponsible media personalities still tried to twist that into saying he’s a quitter. For shame, Mr. Acho!
