Keyshawn Johnson Deion Sanders Undisputed Screengrab: FS1’s Undisputed
By Sam Neumann on

Some of the sports media has criticized Colorado head coach Deion Sanders for using social media to take aim at his critics. While some of his online actions have been controversial, he’s previously avoided targeting former players. However, that recently changed when comments from former players who were ousted from the program went viral after an article from The Athletic humanized them when few people had before.

Here are some of Sanders’ remarks after that article, some directly to players:

The fallout and subsequent backlash have been swift and harsh. Yet some media members remain in Sanders’ corner, insisting he didn’t cross any lines. While Keyshawn Johnson hasn’t been Sanders’ most unabashed supporter in the press, he has revealed that other teams helped Oregon gameplan for Colorado. And he weighed in on Sanders’ side here on Undisputed Thursday.

“If I thought that Deion had stooped to a level that he shouldn’t have been at, I would certainly tell Deion, ‘Man, Deion, what are you doing?’ I would tell him that,” Johnson said on Thursday’s edition of Undisputed. “But I don’t have to tell him that.

“Because when somebody is questioning your character and trying to assassinate your character to tell people, ‘You’re doing this, and you’re making players less than what they are,’ and that’s not the case — and clearly Deion didn’t feel that way. I don’t have no problem with Deion checking the dude.

“First of all, (Deion’s) unique, as we all know. He’s not like the rest of these coaches that coach college football. He would be disingenuous if he didn’t respond.

“That wouldn’t be Deion; that’s not Deion-like. Deion’s gonna check this dude to check him in the right way. If he got up there at a press conference or some golf tournament that they ran into him at…and asked him questions and he sat up there and was like, ‘Well, our football team is really gonna concentrate on next season.’ That’s not who he is.

“So when someone’s trying to assassinate your character and tell people a story that’s not true — at least in your eyes as a coach — you want to protect. And I have no issues with it; none at all.

“As far as his son goes, I like the back-and-forth with the teammates and the ex-teammates. I think it’s funny. One guy showed a clip of another guy in practice…so, to me, that’s humor. OK, they getting at each other. They cutting each other to the white meat. Deion, he handled his business. It is what it is. I like it.”

Well, the betting markets certainly didn’t like the back-and-forth between Shedeur Sanders and his former teammates. And on top of that, there was never an argument that these stories weren’t true. In fact, the only thing that Sanders and his son tried to hammer home is that they didn’t remember these players who were speaking out, so therefore they didn’t matter.

Sanders is allowed to go about his business how he wants, and that’s what Johnson is arguing. On the other side of the argument, it would be disingenuous to suggest that his behavior is alarming, considering that Hugh Freeze and DJ Durkin are currently key figures at one of the top programs in the country.

At the same time, putting off Sanders taking aim at student-athletes as “Deion being Deion” just seems to miss the point altogether. And it completely ignores what the article was articulating in the first place.

[Undisputed on X]

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann