For all of the headlines and narratives that emerged from the 2025 NFL Draft, none of them proved to captivate the nation as much as Shedeur Sanders’ untimely fall to the fifth round. After initially being advertised as a top 10 pick, the former Buffalo ultimately slid all the way to the 144th overall spot in the draft before the Cleveland Browns decided to put an end to the misery.
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From slow release times to accusations of collusion, fans and analysts alike have cited just about everything as a potential cause for the draft day debacle. Nevertheless, one of ESPN’s flagship analysts, Stephen A. Smith, did his best to get to the bottom of the matter.
In noting that he spoke to numerous NFL executives, Smith is now reporting that Sanders’ arrogance is to blame for the fall.
“They talked about, if he was more buttoned up, and all about ball and team as opposed to himself, he would have fallen no later than number 21 in the draft to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Instead, he fell to 144, and they call it a minimum of a $30 million mistake.”
Sanders’ swagger wasn’t the only contributing factor, however, according to Smith. The larger-than-life presence of his Hall of Fame father, Deion Sanders, also played a hand in executives deciding to avoid him in the draft.
While Smith maintained that Sanders is a “box office” personality and head coach, his findings suggest that the upper brass of the NFL didn’t take kindly to his father’s demands and attempts to control the situation.
“Because he let you know that he believed in his son, because he let you know what his son could do, because he let you know that he damn sure was going to keep an eye on things and he was going to have a voice in the proceedings… It’s entirely plausible that the owners were like ‘Who the hell does he think he is? You don’t run this shop, we do.’ Because these owners are like that.”
Given the unprecedented nature of Sanders’ situation, Smith’s segment seems to suggest that NFL executives didn’t view the 23-year-old prospect as being worth the headache. For better or worse, however, Sanders is finally a part of an NFL roster.
Moving forward, it will be solely up to him to make those executives pay for passing on him in the draft.
Stephen A. Smith reflects on Shedeur Sanders pre-draft interviews and final landing spot
Throughout the initial process of Sanders’ slide, speculations surrounding his pre-draft interviews began to run rampant. While Smith was more than understanding of the notion that poor interviews, in addition to opting out of the combine, can hinder a prospect’s draft stock, he still maintained that those things did not warrant Sanders falling as far as he did in the draft.
“They said that the whole interview process wasn’t that impressive… The interview process, while he was there, hurt him. I get it, it makes perfect damn sense, if he’s drafted in the second round. It’s the fact that he fell to fifth that’s alarming.”
Regardless of what the official narrative may be, Smith was adamant in proclaiming that the treatment of Sanders was “freaking unfair.” Considering that his draft experience is now being heralded as the biggest slide in NFL Draft history, the ESPN personality wasn’t willing to completely rule out the idea of collusion either.
“For all we know, team’s collectively, meaning owners, came to the conclusion that nobody is going to touch him in the first four rounds.”
Suffice to say, the Sanders slide will go down as one of the strangest draft day events in history. While fans are unlikely to ever know for certain what may have caused it, at least there is some solace to be found in knowing that the second-generation athlete will get his chance at NFL stardom after all.
