Shedeur Sanders is now a few weeks into his career as a Cleveland Browns quarterback. He reportedly looked very good in rookie minicamp, apparently throwing a much nicer ball than fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel. However, the fifth-round pick has yet to move up the depth chart.
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It currently seems like Joe Flacco has the inside track, with Kenny Pickett also competing for the QB1 role. Gabriel and Sanders are QB3 and QB4 on the depth chart, respectively. They will likely battle it out for the backup QB job, as whoever doesn’t win the battle between Flacco and Pickett could be cut. Or it could be the loser of the Sanders-Gabriel battle who gets released. Who knows—but that draft capital isn’t likely to be wasted so quickly.
What we do know is that no matter his position on the depth chart, Shedeur is going to be the most talked-about of the quartet in the media. He is being scrutinized like no other fifth-round pick ever has been. Reacting to this, Marshawn Lynch recently stated that all the cameras always following him could be detrimental.
“The spotlight on him is gonna be there, so now, it’s just- make the play, and come on with it. All the upside is there for him. The n**** walk outside right now and they f*cking recording him, so every rep that he does take, whether it’s minimal, if it’s two reps, or if it’s 10 reps. Them motherf*ckers is gonna be broadcast,” Lynch said.
“And they’ll run that b**ch for 30 minutes on repeat back there, the same two motherf*cking reps at 40 different angles,” he added.
Lynch’s co-host, Michael Robinson, agreed that the oversaturation of Shedeur’s image in the media will have a negative impact on how the football people in Cleveland view him. Robinson arrived with the Seahawks the same year Lynch did, in 2010. He played with Beast Mode for most of four years, including their 2013 Super Bowl triumph.
On the show, Robinson was able to translate Lynch’s expletive-laden argument into more PG-rated terms.
“What you’re saying is, because the public puts him on camera and his name comes out of their mouth a lot, they’re literally making the football decision for the football people in Cleveland.”
There is no doubt that Robinson is speaking the truth here. NFL pundits and other people in the media constantly complain about the wall-to-wall coverage of Shedeur and denigrate the character of he and his father, while they perpetrate the exact exhaustive coverage of the QB that they whine about. It’s a vicious cycle, and Shedeur is caught in the middle.
Shedeur’s own media company, 2Legendary, also often keeps cameras on the QB. It’s a common practice for pseudo-celebrities and streamers to stream their lives throughout the day, and Sanders does do this on occasion. But while there are certainly aspects of branding, money, and online reach in the decision to keep cameras on himself, there is also a level of self-preservation.
Recently, a Browns beat writer attempted to get a quote out of Sanders about his fanbase, which the beat writer coined as “Sanders Nation.” They were clearly looking for a quote they could use to paint him in a selfish and self-centered light, separating his own fans from the Browns ones. That’s the go-to claim for the anti-Sanders crew.
But Sanders having his camera on during the interaction saved him from any such article being written.
Deion Sanders wasn’t lying when he said he raised his kids to be ready for the spotlight. They just wish the spotlight wasn’t so glaring, and that it didn’t shine so brightly in early June.
