Where you land matters. Shedeur Sanders seems to be doing just fine since being a fifth-round pick by the Cleveland Browns in the 2025 NFL Draft. He may have a boatload of competition in and around him with the ageless Joe Flacco, The Fake Slide King Kenny Pickett and fellow draft classmate Dillon Gabriel as part of the quarterback room. However, I believe in Sanders' upside over his competition.
One thing that came up in the extended wake of the NFL Draft process is what happens when you put a microphone in front of Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal. He ripped ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. for not reaching out to his top quarterback prospect Cam Ward throughout the process, who went No. 1 overall to the Tennessee Titans. Cristobal said Ward spoke "to a million people", but not Kiper...
The Action Network's Brett McMurphy sent out this message from Cristobal about Kiper Wednesday.
It was only a matter of time before Kiper responded, and then Coach Prime chimed in a bit later, too.
Kiper did not talk to Sanders, but he remained steadfast to how he felt about the guys on his board.
Deion Sanders is eternally grateful for Mel Kiper Jr. covered his son's fall
Entering the draft process, I did not think there was anyone who was higher on Shedeur Sanders than me. It may not be by much, but I liked him more as an NFL quarterback prospect than even Ward. At least with Sanders I know that his NFL prototype will work in the league, that he has won in dire circumstances, and that he can handle pressure of having a famous father. He was kind of built for it.
As for Ward, I never felt that he really separated and elevated his teammates. He threw for a lot of yards, but not many wins at Washington State. John Mateer did more with less immediately replacing him in Pullman. While Ward did have a tremendously successful season at Miami, the Hurricanes should have made the College Football Playoff. All they had to do was beat Syracuse, but could not...
In the end, all the pressure is now on Ward and not on Sanders. Where you land matters, but when you are drafted matters even more, or at least initially. Ward may be given one opportunity after another to make it work in Nashville, but the Titans are an incredibly dysfunctional organization, one that does not have a proven track record of taking especially great care of its franchise quarterbacks.
What I am getting at is Sanders will have to grind his way into a promising NFL career. I may like him exponentially more than I do Gabriel, firmly believe he will beat out Pickett when it comes to a spot on the depth chart, and could one day take the reins from Flacco and all his elite glory. Sanders will have to earn his keep. He went to an ideal situation for him, but his last name is no longer of any concern.
Cleveland and Tennessee are not expected to do much this year, so moves shall be made in silence.