While we’re still less than a week removed from the 2024 NFL Draft, it’s never too early to start looking ahead to 2025.
And one of the most intriguing prospects figures to be Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, with his father — Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders — having already touted him as a potential No. 1 overall pick.
The betting markets agree, with DraftKings’ initial offering of odds for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft listing Sanders as the betting favorite at +100. For the uninitiated, that means that a successful $100 wager on Sanders would return a $100 profit, with an implied 50 percent chance that the Colorado quarterback will be next year’s top pick.
If you are really, truly sick in the head… there are #1 pick odds for 2025 available pic.twitter.com/3xrV0nie3j
— Anand Nanduri (@NanduriNFL) April 28, 2024
But in the days since DraftKings’ odds for next year’s draft were first listed, the market has seen a shift. As of Thursday, Sanders remains the betting favorite to be the No. 1 pick, but has seen his odds drop from +100 to +300 — an implied 25 percent chance of him being the top selection.
While draft odds are typically flimsy — especially a year out — the significant shift in Sanders’ odds doesn’t appear to be a matter of a change the evaluation of him as a prospect or money pouring in elsewhere. Rather, it coincided with Sanders and his famous father/coach publicly feuding with a former Colorado player who spoke out regarding his treatment in the Buffaloes program.
Ion even remember him tbh. Bro had to be very mid at best. https://t.co/qwK48Ys0Et
— Shedeur Sanders (@ShedeurSanders) April 30, 2024
Delete this ASAP. They will utilize this type of stuff when looking at where you will be drafted. This is not good in the NFL when we look at team dynamics. No one is bigger than the team at the NFL level
— SheLovesThee (@SheLoves_THEE) April 30, 2024
He will be a top 5 pick. Where yo son going ? Lololol I got time today. Lololol https://t.co/tGS6dfm7iy
— COACH PRIME (@DeionSanders) May 1, 2024
Lawd Jesus https://t.co/WVIBSUE14X
— COACH PRIME (@DeionSanders) May 1, 2024
While it wouldn’t be fair to pin Deion’s social media behavior on his son, the reality is that it’s not hard to imagine NFL teams and talent evaluators holding Shedeur publicly stating he wasn’t even aware of a former teammate and referring to him as “mid at best” against him. If Caleb Williams can receive backlash for painting his fingernails and his eclectic fashion choices, then Sanders’ recent social media behavior is certainly fair game.
As is always the case in sports, it will ultimately come down to whether teams feel that Sanders’ on-field production outweighs any perceived distractions his off-field behavior might bring. For Williams, the answer was that teams — or at least the Chicago Bears — ultimately didn’t care about any noise or detractors. The betting odds, however, suggest that the same might not be able to be said for Sanders’ recent social media behavior.
