You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
The word in question is “collusion,” which Stephen A. Smith invoked when claiming NFL owners conspired in allowing Shedeur Sanders to remain on the board after Days 1 and 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft, like blackballing Colin Kaepernick from the league several years ago.
However, aside from Smith, not many in sports media are backing that theory.
There’s already been pushback, most notably from Bomani Jones, who argues that comparing Sanders to Kaepernick is “embarrassing” and that framing Sanders’ draft slide as a moral crusade is misguided.
Still, the idea of coordinated avoidance gained some oxygen after Boomer Esiason reported that multiple owners allegedly instructed their teams to take the “entitled” Shedeur Sanders off their draft boards altogether. But there’s a difference between outright collusion and NFL owners simply wanting to avoid a perceived distraction from a quarterback the league clearly envisioned as a career backup.
The disconnect between public perception and league evaluation on Shedeur Sanders couldn’t be bigger.
The evaluation process can certainly be flawed, but so too is the logical leap of attributing a prospect’s fall to collusion. Former ESPN president John Skipper offered a far more grounded and, frankly, more plausible explanation than the collusion theory he’d seen floating around.
Former ESPN president John Skipper pushes back on the theory that there was “collusion” by NFL teams against Shedeur Sanders.@PabloTorre: “It’s not collusion, it’s a test of power in which every NFL team was like … ‘This guy is not good enough to demand the treatment, the… pic.twitter.com/mffhGwmw4R
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) April 29, 2025
“The NFL talent managers did not believe that he was a first-, second-, or third-round choice,” Skipper said on The Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. “This is a big story because the most prominent draft expert on ESPN, Mel Kiper Jr., who has generally been pretty accurate, thought otherwise.”
“Mel Kiper is not a joke,” Pablo Torre added. “He’s a deeply respected person with all more institutional memory than anybody else in his business.”
To really get what’s behind Shedeur Sanders’ draft slide, you need to step back and look at the bigger picture. This wasn’t just one team’s decision or some wild conspiracy; it’s more about how the NFL as a whole viewed him.
“This is, I think, the greatest disparity ever between a player he expected to be taken very high,” Skipper said. “He expected to be taken very high. He expects him to be a high-impact player who will make a big difference. Whether you believe it or not, there was some pretty good reporting done. I read a thing in The Athletic, they claim they contacted 10 of the general managers and said, ‘Where is he on your board?’ And they all said, ‘He’s not on our board, particularly.’ You have a funny place, too, where more NFL teams know who their starter is next year than has generally been the case.
“There was sort of, and this was also kind of a weak quarterback class. So, I think a lot of people just passed. They probably didn’t want the distraction of Deion Sanders, because among other things, the first time your quarterback doesn’t perform well, you think Deion’s going to be on SportsCenter talking about, ‘When are they gonna play my son?’ You really want that? I do not believe the collusion theory. If you do believe he can make your team and start next year, and your team will be better, they would take him. They’re interested in getting better.
“I don’t think there’s anybody who’s interested in teaching Deion Sanders a lesson. Though, there are many people that should teach Deion Sanders a lesson, maybe. But I don’t think anyone is going to pass a quarterback, who’s the fifth-best overall player, if there was a consensus that he was the fifth-best player.”
No collusion.
It’s never been about collusion, though. At least now. Not here. As Pablo Torre put it, it’s more about power dynamics. This wasn’t some secretive, league-wide effort to freeze him out; rather, it was the NFL teams making it clear that Sanders didn’t have the pull or status to demand the kind of treatment he thought he deserved. His draft fall wasn’t as much a punishment as it was a statement that, despite his talent, he wasn’t quite on the level he believed he was.
