There have been a lot of strong takes on Shedeur Sanders’ fall in the 2025 NFL Draft, and not just from Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN. On Saturday night, Kiper’s former ESPN colleague (and soon-to-be Fox Sports college football broadcaster) Robert Griffin III went in hard on Sanders’ plummet from a widely-predicted first-round pick to a fifth-round selection (144th overall). Griffin did so in a video on his Outta Pocket With RGIII YouTube channel with his wife Grete:
Griffin makes his full argument there in the whole 40-minute video (titled “Shedeur Sander’s Draft Day fall isn’t about talent, its PERSONAL…” (sic)], but he gets to some notable lines right off the top. That starts around 1:15, with his wife going to literally get some popcorn for his comments. Here are some quotes from that:
“Shedeur Sanders should not have dropped out of the first three rounds of the NFL draft. He dropped out of the first three rounds of the NFL draft because it’s 100% personal. NFL GMs, scouts, and the NFL at large are trying to teach Deion Sanders and Shedeur Sanders a lesson. A lesson that they didn’t teach the Mannings when Eli said he wasn’t going to play in San Diego, a lesson that they did not teach Andrew Luck and his family when he was the perennial No. 1 draft pick from the time he was a freshman in college, a lesson that they did not teach Baker Mayfield when he came out of Oklahoma, and a message that they did not teach Joe Burrow when he came out of LSU.
“So what do I mean by all of that? What I mean is that all of these guys had the confidence, many of them had the bravado that is similar to what Shedeur Sanders has. But none of them were punished in the way he’s been punished.”
Griffin is certainly not alone in his belief that Sanders deserved a higher draft slot based on his talent. Indeed, Kiper made a huge point of that throughout his presence on ESPN’s draft coverage. But just what led to those decisions can be debated.
How much of the various teams’ decisions not to take Sanders were to “teach a lesson” and how much came from other factors (including questions on how Sanders would adapt from the Big 12 to the NFL, questions on how he’d do in a particular team’s offense, and questions on how he’d approach starting as a backup) is difficult to prove from the outside. But it’s certainly notable to see Griffin, himself the second pick overall in the 2012 NFL Draft and a currently-notable broadcaster, weighing in so strongly here.
