Ever since he first began making a name for himself with the Colorado Buffaloes, Shedeur Sanders has drawn some parallels to Tom Brady. Yes, they both play quarterback and wear the number 12 on their jerseys. However, the real connection has always been that the former New England Patriot helped mentor Sanders throughout the early days of his career.
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Having developed a relationship with Sanders’ Hall of Fame father, Deion, Brady was likely one of the first to know about the emerging talent that is now the QB1 for the Cleveland Browns. However, now that the 23-year-old has thrown for 364 passing yards and three touchdowns against a starting NFL defense in the Tennessee Titans, some fans are starting to think that Sanders could be the second coming of the G.O.A.T. himself.
According to one member of the Ball Boy podcast, Luca Barbu, there’s a possibility that “Shedeur Sanders might be the next Tom Brady” on account of the “weirdly similar trajectory” that both of them apparently share as NFL rookies. After making note of Sanders’ aforementioned stat line from Week 14, which just so happened to come during the third start of his professional career, it was highlighted that only one other quarterback in NFL history has managed to produce similar numbers in their third start.
To no surprise, that one quarterback was Brady. The podcast host then pointed out that both Brady and Sanders were afforded their first career starts only after their respective starting quarterbacks sustained a concussion. “How did Shedeur get his first NFL start? Because of Dillon Gabriel’s concussion. How did Brady get his first NFL start? Because of Drew Bledsoe’s concussion,” he said.
Throw in the fact that both of them were late-round draft picks, and that’s apparently enough for this content creator to slap on some spooky music and decree that “You cannot deny that this is rare air.” Unfortunately, that’s about where the connections end. “Shedeur is a late-round pick, sixth round. Brady is a late-round pick, sixth round,” he outlined.
Are there some similarities? Sure. Was Brady initially being heralded as a top draft pick? No. In fact, hardly anyone knew of him when he was drafted, and the seven-time Super Bowl champion didn’t even see his first career start until he was a sophomore in the NFL.
Sanders had been receiving national coverage well before he ever stepped foot in the league, and even though he was made to be the 144th overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft, the noise surrounding him only intensified once he actually landed in Cleveland.
It’s also unlikely that Sanders will be able to win anywhere near as much as Brady did in the early days of his career. The former Patriot was named as New England’s QB1 starting in Week 3 of the 2001 season, and the presence of Antowain Smith and Troy Brown certainly helped to make things a bit easier on him.
Sanders didn’t see his first start until Week 12, and while he has been promised that job title for the remainder of the 2025 season, no one in Cleveland is even close to putting up 1,000+ yards this year. Suffice to say, they may have a few things in common, but these two quarterbacks, as well as their situations, couldn’t be further apart.
