“Shedeur Sanders Didn’t Hire An Agent. Big Mistake”: Colin Cowherd Doesn’t Want the Sanders Clan To Be Portrayed As Victims

When Shedeur Sanders slid all the way to pick No. 144 in the 2025 NFL Draft, the story quickly became about why. Theories flew across social media: Was it a personal grudge from NFL owners? A league-wide effort to “humble” the son of Deion Sanders? Or had Shedeur’s bold persona and viral moments rubbed too many decision-makers the wrong way?

To many, it looked like punishment in disguise. But to sports host Colin Cowherd, that narrative is not only wrong — it’s lazy. “It’s the worst take and narrative happening in sports right now,” Cowherd said on a recent edition of The Herd. “The NFL just doesn’t know what they’re doing with quarterbacks? Time out.”

The veteran journalist, never one to shy away from a strong take, firmly shut down the idea that teams passed on Shedeur Sanders out of spite. Instead, he pointed to mismanagement from the Sanders camp as the real reason things fell apart, starting with the former Buffs quarterback going into the draft without professional representation.

“Shedeur Sanders didn’t hire an agent. Big mistake,” Cowherd said. “He just listened to his dad — bigger mistake.”

Cowherd explained that while Deion Sanders may have the star power and connections, he’s not an NFL agent. And without an experienced negotiator steering pre-draft conversations and interviews, Shedeur was left exposed during the most crucial part of the process.

“It’s all really explainable,” Cowherd added. “Stop making Shedeur and Deion Sanders the victim here. They’re not.”

To back up his point, the sports journalist rattled off a list of first-round quarterbacks thriving across the league — Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, CJ Stroud, and Aaron Rodgers, among others.

He also cited top rookie names of last season like Drake Maye and Caleb Williams, reinforcing his belief that the league gets quarterback evaluations right far more often than it gets credit for, meaning Sanders’ slide was a fair reflection of his prospects.

Or in simple words, had Shedeur Sanders followed a more conventional path, i.e. hired an agent, handled meetings differently, the outcome might’ve looked a lot more like the names above.

Interestingly, Shedeur’s older brother, Shilo Sanders, ended up providing the real-time case study. After also going through the draft process without an agent, or rather being represented by his dad and going undrafted, the Buffs safety finally pivoted. He signed with NFL super-agent Drew Rosenhaus on Day 3. And lo and behold, by that evening, Rosenhaus had already secured him an undrafted free agent deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

As Cowherd sees it, the Sanders brothers didn’t get snubbed — they got mismanaged. And while both of them eventually found homes in the league, their draft slides weren’t proof of a league conspiracy. They were a cautionary tale — one agent away from a very different story.