Dan Orlovsky and Marcus Spears don’t always agree on everything, but they both think it’s time for the NFL media to stop eulogizing Shedeur Sanders. Stephen A. Smith, however, isn’t quite ready to stop mourning the Colorado quarterback’s slide out of the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
On Friday’s episode of First Take, Smith took issue with Sanders’ draft day drop. And even while disregarding the pre-draft narratives regarding the 23-year-old’s interview habits, the ESPN star insisted that Sanders slid for non-football reasons.
“I believe that the biggest issue in all of this was Primetime Deion Sanders and the thought of having to deal with him,” Smith said in reference to Sanders’ father/college head coach. “It’s hard for me to sit here today and to watch a dude that was once projected to be one of the top 2 picks potentially in the draft to drop completely out of the first round and to ignore all those reports that had come out about him leading into the draft.”
Orlovsky and Spears vehemently disagreed, stating that it was reasonable to believe that the NFL’s 32 teams didn’t evaluate Sanders as a first-round prospect. Smith, however, stuck to his guns, reiterating his stance that his Hall of Fame cornerback father played a prime role in teams opting to avoid the previously projected top overall pick.
“If you think that I’m going to sit here and assume that that was strictly an evaluation about his football skills alone that led to him falling out the entire first round without his father having an impact, I don’t buy that,” he said.
More SAS: “If you think that I’m going to sit here and assume that that was strictly an evaluation about his football skills alone that led to him falling out the entire first round without his father having an impact, I don’t buy that.” pic.twitter.com/E2LXZXs5ZF
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 25, 2025
While dealing with Deion might be a legitimate concern for some teams, the reality is we’re only 32 picks into the draft. If Shedeur slides to Day 3 or goes undrafted, then this might be a legitimate gripe. But whichever team inevitability drafts Shedeur is going to have to face the attention that comes with it — and his famous father’s shadow — whether it’s in the first or fifth round.
Ultimately, Shedeur Sanders was an accomplished college player with reasonable questions about how his game would translate to the next level. Factor in that only so many teams have an immediate need at quarterback — at this point, it might only be Pittsburgh and Cleveland — and it seems a bit premature to be touting conspiracy theories, especially when we’ve yet to see the rest of the draft play out.
