The wait is nearly over: after a fairly unconventional path through the collegiate ranks alongside his famous father, Shedeur Sanders is on the verge of becoming the face of an NFL franchise. Here's a look at what that rebuilding team is going to get with their hard-earned top pick.
Background
Shedeur Sanders grew up in Cedar Hill, TX on the southernmost edge of the contiguous Dallas metro, attending the perennial TAPPS juggernaut Trinity Leadership School... where his father was heading into his second year as the offensive coordinator. Sanders would start as a freshman and helped lead the Tigers on a run of complete dominance in his three years there: 8,925 yards passing, a 123:19 TD-to-INT ratio, a 39-2 record and three consecutive Texas Private and Parochial Schools state championships.
After initially committing to Florida Atlantic University, Sanders shockingly chose to decommit from the FAU Owls to follow his dad to Jackson State, an HBCU school in Mississippi's capital. Sanders hit the ground running in the fall of 2021, leading Jackson State to an 11-0 record and SWAC championship by throwing for 30 TDs and completing 65.9% of his passes, with the only blemish a surprise 31-10 blowout against South Carolina State in the Celebration Bowl. Sanders took it to another level in 2022, racking up 40 TD passes, 3,732 passing yards and another undefeated SWAC championship campaign.
The Sanders' football caravan would depart from Jackson as abruptly as it arrived, as Deion Sanders agreed to become the next head football coach at the wayward University of Colorado in December of 2022. Fresh off of an abysmal 1-11 finish, expectations were definitely minimal for the Buffaloes in 2023 even with the arrivals of Sanders and some other transfer portal reinforcements; in fact, the whole thing was widely regarded as a sideshow. But the Sanders wasted no time quieting critics, as Colorado went down to Fort Worth and knocked off the 17th-ranked TCU Horned Frogs in Shedeur's D-I debut. The Buffaloes would punch themselves out quickly after a 3-0 start, cratering to a 4-8 finish in the face of a long string of draws against the PAC-12s best teams. But even as the team struggled Sanders shone, logging a 27:3 TD-to-INT ratio and sparkling 69.3 completion percentage.
The 2024 season saw the father-son duo lead Colorado fully out of the darkness and Shedeur solidify his draft position for the spring. The Buffaloes 9-4 record was an unqualified success and their first winning record in a full season since 2016, climbing as high as 16th in the AP poll and beginning in earnest the long road back to respectability. Shedeur Sanders was once again the pillar of their turnaround, authoring the most impressive individual performance of his young career with 4,134 yards and 41 TDs passing on a double take-inducing 74.0% completion rate. By completing 71.8% of his passes for Colorado, Sanders heads to the NFL as D-I college football's most accurate quarterback of all-time.
Tape
You don't have to watch his film for long to see that Sanders has the requisite physical tools to make it in the pros - not exactly a shocker for a guy from an NFL royalty bloodline. Listed at 6'2" and 215 pounds, Sanders has a live arm that at times looks downright electric; I had to hit rewind for a few of his 'Wow!' throws. Able to anchor to the ground and generate power while on the run with ease, Sanders' fastball loses almost nothing when he leaks out of the pocket to buy time for his receivers. Sanders can flat out make all the throws, and he has a nice high release that will help to mitigate issues with balls being batted at the line. Sanders' accuracy generally ranges from great to surgical, hits a lot of stick throws to the intermediate boundaries through the eye of a needle with big league velocity. While he has plenty of tape where he executed the play as it was drawn up, the Caleb Williams comparisons are coming and will not be unwarranted: Sanders is in his element casually stringing rushers toward the boundary while his receivers hit their secondary routes and defensive backfields begin to crumble.
While he doesn't have anything close to his dad's jets, the younger Sanders is also a plus runner in the open field (for a quarterback) that can make defenders miss, usually by deploying a little NFL Eurostep juke to bust a defender's pursuit angle; he's approximately a Mahomes-caliber runner, maybe a tad better. Has no problem keeping his eyes downfield while managing bodies moving around him in and out of the pocket and has the strength to shrug off arm tackles from defenders that think they can get a handful of jersey and drag him down that way. Sanders has real play strength and balance, attributes that will most certainly help at the next level.
But as much as there is to like, Sanders is certainly not without his question marks. For starters, I don't love the throwing mechanics: one play he uncorks a 40-yard laser beam straight in the bucket while scrambling, and the next he is able to step up in the pocket and the ball comes with less pop, or wobbling. Sanders also has a bit of a tick in his throwing motion where he will tilt his throwing shoulder up as he's coming over the top, as if to manufacture some additional last second height to keep the ball from being swatted at the line. It's hard to argue with the mechanics of a guy that has completed 72% of his passes in D-I football, but it got my attention. Sanders' fearlessness in the face of the rush has been commendable in college, but he looks a little too willing to eat big hits in order to get the ball out for my tastes; opposing defensive linemen are about to get a lot bigger.
But let's get back to that Caleb Williams thing, because that's far and away the biggest concern here. While he's looked excellent doing it, there's no denying that the general tenor and style of the offense he's excelled at piloting the last two years has been basically a soft spread scheme where Sanders made everything happen for the offense, either on script or off - Colorado's leading rusher in 2024 went for a whopping 384 yards. It's great to have the ability to make something out of a broken play a handful of times per game, but if you can't make NFL defenses respect what you can do to them on the ground and in the quick passing game then those scramble drill plays are more often than not going to end disastrously. Sanders took a lot of sacks in Boulder; he'll take a ton in 2025 if he can't adapt his sandlot playstyle to the big leagues, and quickly.
Projection & Fit
When you're one of the two most coveted quarterbacks in the class the projection part gets real easy: Sanders will be off the board on the draft's opening night, almost assuredly in the first half-dozen picks. But when you're talking about the teams that have that kind of premium draft capital you're generally going to be talking about ones with major scheme and personnel issues, and 2025 is most definitely no exception.
Tennessee has the top pick here, and new front office duo GM Mike Borgonzi and president of football operations Chad Brinker (previously an assistant to the fired Ran Carthon) desperately need to hit the ground running at quarterback. And while they are of course taking a good, hard look at Sanders, they've been rather solicitous about their desire to either trade out of the draft's top spot or take a "generational talent", phrasing that would point more toward taking either Sanders' teammate WR/CB Travis Hunter or possibly Penn State EDGE Abdul Carter; doesn't suggest a burning desire to make Sanders the face of their rebuild restart. Cleveland's right behind them at 2, but GM Andrew Berry has been adamant that the Browns will not trade Myles Garrett this winter and could be intent on competing in 2025. Maybe Sanders fits with that plan, or maybe grabbing an Aaron Rodgers or Kirk Cousins fits better.
The Giants are where there's been the most smoke so far, and it would make plenty of sense: New York is starting over at quarterback, and neither GM Joe Schoen nor HC Brian Daboll will make it to Halloween if the Giants don't show some progress to start the 2025 campaign. University of Miami quarterback Cam Ward is an equally exciting talent but is generally regarded as less pro-ready; Schoen and Daboll don't have time for the usual rookie growing pains. Sanders offers the same brand of good-not-elite running ability as the departed Daniel Jones, but with presumably far better accuracy, decision-making and big play ability as a passer. Daboll is credited with unlocking Josh Allen's potential in Buffalo; maybe now, 3+ years in, he'll get his first chance to work with a non-reclamation project under center... that is, if he can stave off a pink slip long enough.
Sanders is no doubt a player who will invite a wide range of opinions, and it will be hard to poke holes in any of them: on the one hand, he hasn't played a game of football above Pop Warner where his Hall of Fame father wasn't on the sideline in some capacity; on the other, he has done nothing but produce at a near-relentless clip at every stop along the way. Sanders looks to have the stuff to hack it at the next level, but whether he'll be the kind of transformative player that NFL teams are hunting for at the top of the draft remains a wide-open question.
Draft: 1st round, 3rd overall to the New York Giants
Ceiling: Steve Young
Floor: Zach Wilson
Next Up: Tahj Brooks
—Luke Wilson