Shedeur Sanders is locked in the NFL Draft’s spin cycle, and it’s not fair

Shedeur’s biggest enemy in the draft is his dad.

Shedeur Sanders comes with baggage, and none of that is of his own volition. The NFL Scouting Combine kicks off in Indianapolis this week, and while there’s no doubt this is a weak draft at quarterback, Sanders still finds himself as QB1 on a majority of big boards. Now it’s just about cementing that position, and it’s here where things get very, very muddy.

Opinions on Sanders vacillate between ridiculous extremes. These state that the Colorado quarterback will either enter the NFL and redefine the league, or he’s going to be the biggest bust in the last decade – and there’s no room for wiggle in the middle. That’s the most infuriating part of discussing Shedeur, because he truly falls between this spectrum. There’s nothing to indicate he’s going to be terrible. Sanders physically has all the tools, there are no off-field concerns about him, and he’s often been credited for having a peerless work ethic.

Simultaneously there are some clear issues here too. Sanders doesn’t have elite arm strength, nor has he shown velocity to scream the ball into tight windows. In addition, despite having solid NFL size, Shedeur often played small, responding to imagined pressure when not in the shotgun, and bailing on plays too early. This is partially due to Colorado’s abysmal offensive line, but it’s also a trait that doesn’t bode well for his future in the NFL.

When taken in totality there’s a very definite ceiling to Shedeur Sanders. He simply does not have the tools to be one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be bad either. If his ceiling in the league is someone like Tua Tagovailoa, who is extremely accurate, but lacks elite arm strength, making him scheme dependent – then that’s enough to win in the NFL. Whether or not that’s worth a Top 5 pick in the NFL Draft is another story, and something teams will need to settle on.

There’s no point mincing words. The biggest problem with Shedeur Sanders as a prospect is Deion Sanders. Football’s king of marketing and self-promotion, Prime Time casts a shadow over his son that’s difficult to escape. When Deion appears on TV saying he has no problem pulling an Eli Manning and preventing a team from drafting Shedeur, sure, part of that is just fatherly concern – but it’s also a red flag when Shedeur really isn’t in a position to call his own shots. Both Eli Manning and John Elway were coveted No. 1 pick locks when they threw their weight around pre-draft, while there’s a very real chance Shedeur is the QB2 behind Miami’s Cam Ward – and that wouldn’t happen if not for Deion Sanders.

The other element is that some members of the media are simply terrified of incurring the wrath of Deion Sanders. In the past he’s proven to be petty with reporters who don’t serve his agenda, and whether or not Colorado is good is immaterial. Deion has made the team one of the biggest storylines in college football, and reporters walk on eggshells as a result – terrified of being cut off from stories.

This makes it okay to raise an eyebrow and question when reports are written like this, which sound like crib notes directly from a sports agent.

“He’ll allow his four years of film to speak loudly” is the biggest eye-roll imaginable, even if it’s technically true. You simply don’t hear about other prospects getting this same level of deference when it comes to not throwing — and we have the receipts from one year ago. Notice how different the wording is when it came to Jayden Daniels, who won the damn Heisman and had a stronger resume.

The whole situation makes it difficult to completely buy in to Shedeur Sanders. It’s like doing your own research on buying a car, settling on it, then you get such a hard sell at the dealership that you start to get the ick and your feet go cold for no good reason. It’s abundantly clear that Deion and his team are working behind the scenes to bolster Shedeur’s draft stock, which in understandable, but we’re not even in Indy yet and this is going to far.

This process will continue. Sanders is going to get built up for the rest of this week and into the next until we’re constantly being told he’s a can’t-miss, Andrew Luck level prospect — because that’s the plan for him. The pushback to this hyperbole will be to brand him as a bust, and once more we have a really good player (though not great), caught in the middle unfairly.

The best thing you can do as a football fan is watch the film yourself. Cut out the noise. See the legitimate pros and cons to Sanders as a quarterback and formulate an opinion from there — because right now there’s a lot of investment going in to swaying public opinion and hoping it trickles up to front offices.